empt anything of
the kind. Should he penetrate into his haunts and meet him the result
could only be disastrous, for Danglars would take a fiendish delight in
betraying him to his desperate associates, who would not hesitate even
to murder him at his bidding, and the former banker was fully capable of
compassing his assassination in the most horrible fashion as a crowning
stroke of diabolical revenge. There was a time when Monte-Cristo valued
life very little, when he would gladly have accepted death as a welcome
avenue to endless rest and peace, but that time had passed; since then
he had contracted ties that bound him to existence with insurmountable
strength; he had now a family, was surrounded by beings he tenderly
loved and cherished, beings for whom he must live and over whose
destinies he must closely watch. He was wedded to Mercedes, who lavished
upon him in her maturity all the wealth of overwhelming affection she
had showered upon him before the fateful conspiracy that had consigned
him as the sailor Dantes to the dark, noisome dungeon of the Chateau d'
If and given her to the arms of Fernand, the Catalan. Haydee had
fluttered over the page of his stormy, agitated history, leaving him
Esperance and Zuleika as reminders of a happy, but all too brief dream,
an elfin vision of enchantment that had vanished as swiftly as it had
come. But his son and daughter had twined themselves about the fibres of
his heart as the clinging ivy twines about the shattered fragments of
some grand and imposing ruin, and each day, each moment, as it sped by,
only served the more to reveal to him the longings and the devotion of a
father's soul. Besides, Albert de Morcerf and his young wife Eugenie
were now thoroughly endeared to him, and he felt that by doing
everything in his power to augment their happiness he was gradually
paying off the heavy debt he owed to Danglars' so long abandoned child.
Yes, the Count of Monte-Cristo wished to live, first for his family,
then for the great cause of human liberty with which he had become so
thoroughly identified. If Danglars came in his way he would endeavor to
reclaim and propitiate him, but he could not seek him out.

Mercedes at the period of the attempted robbery was absent on a visit to
some friends in Marseilles, and by common consent it was resolved not to
inform her of Danglars' reappearance, as the intelligence could not fail
to be a prostrating shock to her.

Ever since that memor