windows, and shone upon the pale blue paper on which he had just traced his justification of Providence.
It was just five o'clock in the morning, when a slight noise reached his ear, which appeared like a stifled sigh; he turned his head, looked around him, and saw no one; but the sound was repeated distinctly enough to convince him of its reality. He arose, and quietly opening the door of the drawing-room, saw Haydée, who had fallen on a chair, with her arms hanging down and her beautiful head thrown back. She had been standing at the door to prevent his going out without seeing her, until sleep, which the young cannot resist, had overpowered her frame, wearied as she was with watching so long. The noise of the door did not awaken her, and Monte-Cristo gazed at her with affectionate regret.
"She remembered she had a son," said he; "and I forgot I had a daughter." Then, shaking his head sorrowfully, "Poor Haydée!" said he; "she wished to see me to speak to me; she has feared or guessed something. Oh! I cannot go without taking leave of her; I cannot die without confiding her to some one."
He quietly regained his seat, and wrote under the other lines:
He was finishing the last line when a cry behind him made him start, and the pen fell from his hand.
"Haydée," said he, "did you read it?"
"Oh! my lord," said she, "why are you writing thus at such an hour? why are you bequeathing all your fortune to me! Are you going to leave me?"
"I am going on a journey, dear child," said Monte-Cristo, with an expression of infinite tenderness and melancholy; "and if any misfortune should happen to me" The count stopped.
"Well?" asked the young girl, with an authoritative tone the count had never observed before, and which startled him.
