“Oh, merciful Heavens!” murmured Villefort. Morrel raised his head, and reading the eyes of the old man, which gleamed with unnatural lustre,—
“Stay,” he said, “M. Noirtier wishes to speak.”
“Yes,” indicated Noirtier, with an expression the more terrible, from all his faculties being centred in his glance.
“Do you know the assassin?” asked Morrel.
“Yes,” replied Noirtier.
“And will you direct us?” exclaimed the young man. “Listen, M. d’Avrigny, listen!”
Noirtier looked upon Morrel with one of those melancholy smiles which had so often made Valentine happy, and thus fixed his attention. Then, having riveted the eyes of his interlocutor on his own, he glanced towards the door.
“Do you wish me to leave?” said Morrel, sadly.
“Yes,” replied Noirtier.
“Alas, alas, sir, have pity on me!”
The old man’s eyes remained fixed on the door.
“May I, at least, return?” asked Morrel.
“Yes.”
“Must I leave alone?”
“No.”
“Whom am I to take with me? The procureur?”
“No.”
“The doctor?”
“Yes.”
“You wish to remain alone with M. de Villefort?”
“Yes.”
“But can he understand you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” said Villefort, inexpressibly delighted to think that the inquiries were to be made by him alone,—“oh, be satisfied, I can understand my father.” While uttering these words with this expression of joy, his teeth clashed together violently.
D’Avrigny took the young man’s arm, and led him out of the room. A more than deathlike silence then reigned in the house. At the end of a quarter of an hour a faltering footstep was heard, and Villefort appeared at the door of the apartment where d’Avrigny and Morrel had been staying, one absorbed in meditation, the other in grief.