, so have I
saved him. I feared for his reason if he saw you, except in a trance--
from his trance he will wake to happiness!"

Next morning Valentine and Maximilian were walking on the beach, when
Jacopo, the captain of Monte Cristo's yacht, gave them a letter. As they
looked on the superscription they cried, simultaneously, "Gone!"

In his letter, Monte Cristo, said: "All that is in this grotto, my
friend, my house in the Champs Elysees, and my chateau at Treport, are
the marriage gifts bestowed by Edmond Dantes upon the son of his old
master, Morrel. Mademoiselle de Villefort will share them with you; for
I entreat her to give to the poor the immense fortune reverting to her
from her father, now a madman, and her brother, who died last September
with his mother."

"But where is the count?" asked Morrel eagerly. Jacopo pointed towards
the horizon, where a white sail was visible.

"And where is Haidee?" asked Valentine. Jacopo still pointed towards the
sail.

* * * * *

The Three Musketeers

It was not till the publication of "The Three Musketeers," in
1844, that the amazing gifts of Dumas were fully recognised.
From 1844 till 1850, the literary output of novels, plays, and
historical memoirs was enormous, and so great was the demand
for Dumas' work that he made no attempt to supply his
customers single-handed, but engaged a host of assistants, and
was content to revise and amend--or in some cases only to
sign--their productions. "The Three Musketeers" was followed
by its sequel, "Twenty Years After," in 1845, and the story
was continued still further in the "Vicomte de Bragelonne."
The "Valois" series of novels, "Monte Cristo," and the
"Memoirs of a Physician," were all published before 1850, in
addition to many dramatised versions of stories.

_I.--The Musketeer's Apprenticeship_

D'Artagnan was without acquaintances in Paris, and now on the very day
of his arrival he was committed to fight with three of the most
distinguished of the king's musketeers.

Coming from Gascony, a youth with all the pride and ambition of his
race, D'Artagnan had brought no money; with him, but only a letter of
introduction from his father to M. de Treville, captain of the
musketeers. But he had been taught that by courage alone could a man now
make his way to fortune, and that he was to bear nothing, save from the
car