eir happiness to you, my lord," resumed Haydee, meekly.

"They owe it to God," answered Monte-Cristo, solemnly; "I was but His
humble instrument, and He has allowed me in this to make some slight
atonement for the wrong I committed in taking vengeance into my own
mortal hands."

Haydee was silent. She knew the sad history of Edmond Dantes, and was
aware of how remorselessly the Count of Monte-Cristo had avenged the
wrongs of the humble sailor of Marseilles. This she had learned from her
lord's own lips within the past few days. The strict seclusion in which
she had lived in Paris had necessarily excluded her from all personal
knowledge of the Count's subtle war upon his enemies; true, she had
emerged from her retirement to testify against Morcerf at his trial
before the House of Peers, but at that time she was ignorant of the fact
that by causing the foe of her family to be convicted of felony, treason
and outrage she had simply promoted Monte-Cristo's vengeance on Fernand,
the Catalan. But, though silent, the beautiful Greek girl, with her
thoroughly oriental ideas, could not realize that the man who stood
beside her, the being she almost worshiped, had been guilty of the least
wrong in avenging himself. Besides, she would never have admitted, even
in the most secret recesses of her own heart, that Monte-Cristo, who to
her mind symbolized all that was good, pure and heroic in human nature,
could have been wrong in anything he did.

Meanwhile the Count also had been silent, and a shade of the deepest
sadness had settled upon his pallid but intellectual visage. He gazed at
the Isle of Monte-Cristo until it became a mere dot in the distance;
then, putting his arm tenderly about his lovely companion's waist, he
drew her gently toward the cabin.

As they vanished down the companion-way, Bertuccio and the captain of
the Alcyon, followed by Ali, the Nubian, advanced to the prow of the
yacht.

"Captain," said Bertuccio, "can you tell me whither we are bound? I feel
an irresistible desire to know."

"Yes," answered the captain, "I can tell you. The Count ordered me to
make with all possible speed for the Island of Crete."

Bertuccio gave a sigh of relief.

"I feared we were bound for Italy," he said. "But," he added, after an
instant's thought, "why should we go to Rome? Luigi Vampa is amply able
to care for all the Count's interests there, if, indeed, any remain now
that the Baron Danglars has been attended to."

Th