by Alexander Dumas

“ At last, one day, when for the hundredth time I took up my spade, I asked myself again and again what the Corsican could have done with the child. A child encumbers a fugitive; perhaps, on perceiving it was still alive, he had thrown it into the river."
"Impossible!" cried Madame Danglars: "a man may murder another out of revenge, but he would not deliberately drown a child."
"Perhaps," continued Villefort, "he had put it in the foundling hospital."
"Oh, yes, yes," cried the baroness; "my child is there!" ”

“ Villefort, becoming somewhat reassured, perceived that to avert the maternal storm gathering over his head, he must inspire Madame Danglars with the terror he felt. "You understand, then, that if it were so," said he, rising in his turn, and approaching the baroness, to speak to her in a lower tone, "we are lost. This child lives, and some one knows it lives -- some one is in possession of our secret; and since Monte Cristo speaks before us of a child disinterred, when that child could not be found, it is he who is in possession of our secret." ”

“ Dead bodies are not kept a year; they are shown to a magistrate, and the evidence is taken. Now, nothing of the kind has happened."
"What then?" asked Hermine, trembling violently.
"Something more terrible, more fatal, more alarming for us -- the child was, perhaps, alive, and the assassin may have saved it!"
Madame Danglars uttered a piercing cry, and, seizing Villefort's hands, exclaimed, "My child was alive?" said she; "you buried my child alive? You were not certain my child was dead, and you buried it? ”

“ When I look at this room, -- whence so many guilty creatures have departed, trembling and ashamed, when I look at that chair before which I now sit trembling and ashamed, -- oh, it requires all my reason to convince me that I am not a very guilty woman and you a menacing judge. ”

“ Collect all your courage, for you have not yet heard all."
"Ah," exclaimed Madame Danglars, alarmed, "what is there more to hear?"
"You only look back to the past, and it is, indeed, bad enough. Well, picture to yourself a future more gloomy still -- certainly frightful, perhaps sanguinary." The baroness knew how calm Villefort naturally was, and his present excitement frightened her so much that she opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died in her throat. "How has this terrible past been recalled?" cried Villefort ”

“ Then, when he had assured himself that he could neither be seen nor heard, and was consequently relieved of doubts, he said, -- "Thanks, madame, -- thanks for your punctuality;" and he offered a chair to Madame Danglars, which she accepted, for her heart beat so violently that she felt nearly suffocated. ”

“ The child was born, was given to me -- motionless, breathless, voiceless; we thought it dead." Madame Danglars moved rapidly, as though she would spring from her chair, but Villefort stopped, and clasped his hands as if to implore her attention. "We thought it dead," he repeated; "I placed it in the chest, which was to take the place of a coffin; I descended to the garden, I dug a hole, and then flung it down in haste. Scarcely had I covered it with earth, when the arm of the Corsican was stretched towards me; I saw a shadow rise, and, at the same time, a flash of light. I felt pain ”

“ There was a great deal going on that morning, and many business-like persons at the Palais; business-like persons pay very little attention to women, and Madame Danglars crossed the hall without exciting any more attention than any other woman calling upon her lawyer. There was a great press of people in M. de Villefort's ante-chamber, but Madame Danglars had no occasion even to pronounce her name. ”

“ It is generally the case that what we most ardently desire is as ardently withheld from us by those who wish to obtain it, or from whom we attempt to snatch it. Thus, the greater number of a man's errors come before him disguised under the specious form of necessity ”