This
was all M. Dantes could distinctly recall, though he was certain he had
heard other details that had slipped his memory. At the period of the
abduction, he now remembered, both Esperance and the Viscount were
temporarily absent from Rome; then followed their return and the quarrel
that had almost resulted in a duel, but had suddenly been patched up
without apparent reason. Had Esperance and the Viscount been concerned
in the abduction? That was a question that only they or Luigi Vampa
could answer, and it was evident the young men would not speak. Vampa
then must be made to speak for them; that was the sole course left to
pursue, for the peasant girl had disappeared immediately after her
return, and her whereabouts were a mystery.

M. Dantes drew writing materials before him and wrote his letter to the
brigand chief; it was brief, but to the point. When it was finished, it
bore the signature, "Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte-Cristo." The Deputy
placed it in the drawer of his table to go by mail the following
morning, having first folded and sealed it. "Thomson and French, Rome,"
was the direction it bore.

CHAPTER XXX.

TWO INTERVIEWS.

The morning following the events detailed in the last chapter, as
Esperance was in his dressing-room preparing to take a short stroll
through Paris, Ali knocked at the door and signified that M. Dantes
wished to see him at once in the library. As such a summons was
something unusual, the young man immediately concluded that Zuleika had
been in consultation with her father and that he would now have to
submit to a close and rigid examination; he had expected such an
examination, but, nevertheless, the summons filled him with dismay and
he grew pale as wax, his limbs trembling beneath him and his hands
working nervously; however, he braced up as well as he could, and with
as firm a step as it was possible for him to assume walked toward the
library. On the threshold he paused, and his courage so utterly forsook
him that he was tempted to take refuge in flight, but the thought
flashed through his mind that this would be cowardly, and, making a
supreme effort to control himself, he entered his father's presence.

M. Dantes, who was seated at his writing-table examining a curious
manuscript written in Arabic characters, looked up as he came in and
fixed his eyes searchingly upon his son's countenance, noting its
extreme pallor and remarking with manifest uneasiness the diffi