“Dantès? Did I know poor dear Edmond? Why, Edmond Dantès and myself were intimate friends!” exclaimed Caderousse, whose countenance flushed darkly as he caught the penetrating gaze of the abbé fixed on him, while the clear, calm eye of the questioner seemed to dilate with feverish scrutiny.
“You remind me,” said the priest, “that the young man concerning whom I asked you was said to bear the name of Edmond.”
“Said to bear the name!” repeated Caderousse, becoming excited and eager. “Why, he was so called as truly as I myself bore the appellation of Gaspard Caderousse; but tell me, I pray, what has become of poor Edmond? Did you know him? Is he alive and at liberty? Is he prosperous and happy?”
“He died a more wretched, hopeless, heart-broken prisoner than the felons who pay the penalty of their crimes at the galleys of Toulon.”
A deadly pallor followed the flush on the countenance of Caderousse, who turned away, and the priest saw him wiping the tears from his eyes with the corner of the red handkerchief twisted round his head.
“Poor fellow, poor fellow!” murmured Caderousse. “Well, there, sir, is another proof that good people are never rewarded on this earth, and that none but the wicked prosper. Ah,” continued Caderousse, speaking in the highly colored language of the South, “the world grows worse and worse. Why does not God, if he really hates the wicked, as he is said to do, send down brimstone and fire, and consume them altogether?”
“You speak as though you had loved this young Dantès,” observed the abbé, without taking any notice of his companion’s vehemence.
“And so I did,” replied Caderousse; “though once, I confess, I envied him his good fortune. But I swear to you, sir, I swear to you, by everything a man holds dear, I have, since then, deeply and sincerely lamented his unhappy fate.”
There was a brief silence, during which the fixed, searching eye of the abbé was employed in scrutinizing the agitated features of the innkeeper.
“You knew the poor lad, then?” continued Caderousse.