; and besides," she added, her eyes troubled and
moistened with tears, "wait, wait, Fernand; you said just now that the
sea was treacherous, and he has been gone four months, and during these
four months there have been some terrible storms."

Fernand made no reply, nor did he attempt to check the tears which
flowed down the cheeks of Mercedes, although for each of these tears he
would have shed his heart's blood; but these tears flowed for another.
He arose, paced a while up and down the hut, and then, suddenly stopping
before Mercedes, with his eyes glowing and his hands clinched,--"Say,
Mercedes," he said, "once for all, is this your final determination?"

"I love Edmond Dantes," the young girl calmly replied, "and none but
Edmond shall ever be my husband."

"And you will always love him?"

"As long as I live."

Fernand let fall his head like a defeated man, heaved a sigh that was
like a groan, and then suddenly looking her full in the face, with
clinched teeth and expanded nostrils, said,--"But if he is dead"--

"If he is dead, I shall die too."

"If he has forgotten you"--

"Mercedes!" called a joyous voice from without,--"Mercedes!"

"Ah," exclaimed the young girl, blushing with delight, and fairly
leaping in excess of love, "you see he has not forgotten me, for here he
is!" And rushing towards the door, she opened it, saying, "Here, Edmond,
here I am!"

Fernand, pale and trembling, drew back, like a traveller at the sight
of a serpent, and fell into a chair beside him. Edmond and Mercedes were
clasped in each other's arms. The burning Marseilles sun, which shot
into the room through the open door, covered them with a flood of light.
At first they saw nothing around them. Their intense happiness isolated
them from all the rest of the world, and they only spoke in broken
words, which are the tokens of a joy so extreme that they seem rather
the expression of sorrow. Suddenly Edmond saw the gloomy, pale, and
threatening countenance of Fernand, as it was defined in the shadow.
By a movement for which he could scarcely account to himself, the young
Catalan placed his hand on the knife at his belt.

"Ah, your pardon," said Dantes, frowning in his turn; "I did not
perceive that there were three of us." Then, turning to Mercedes, he
inquired, "Who is this gentleman?"

"One who will be your best friend, Dantes, for he is my friend, my
cousin, my brother; it is Fernand--the man whom, after you, Edmond, I
love