“How is that?”
“Because their deeds have brought them good fortune, while honest men have been reduced to misery.”
“What has become of Danglars, the instigator, and therefore the most guilty?”
“What has become of him? Why, he left Marseilles, and was taken, on the recommendation of M. Morrel, who did not know his crime, as cashier into a Spanish bank. During the war with Spain he was employed in the commissariat of the French army, and made a fortune; then with that money he speculated in the funds, and trebled or quadrupled his capital; and, having first married his banker’s daughter, who left him a widower, he has married a second time, a widow, a Madame de Nargonne, daughter of M. de Servieux, the king’s chamberlain, who is in high favor at court. He is a millionaire, and they have made him a baron, and now he is the Baron Danglars, with a fine residence in the Rue du Mont-Blanc, with ten horses in his stables, six footmen in his antechamber, and I know not how many millions in his strongbox.”
“Ah!” said the abbé, in a peculiar tone, “he is happy.”
“Happy? Who can answer for that? Happiness or unhappiness is the secret known but to one’s self and the walls—walls have ears but no tongue; but if a large fortune produces happiness, Danglars is happy.”
“And Fernand?”
“Fernand? Why, much the same story.”
“But how could a poor Catalan fisher-boy, without education or resources, make a fortune? I confess this staggers me.”