The young girl touched a bell and Ali, the Nubian, appeared.
"Monsieur is about taking his departure," said she to the faithful servant. "I leave him in your hands."
And without a word of farewell to Giovanni, she swept from the salon like a queen.
The Viscount gazed after her with indescribable sadness pictured upon his handsome countenance. Then he followed Ali, put on his overcoat and hat and regretfully left the house.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MINUTE VIALS.
Even to the Communists, with whom he had come into such close contact, M. Dantès, the Deputy from Marseilles, remained as much of a mystery as ever. Marrast, though now devotedly attached to him, admitted that he was totally unable to fathom either his designs, or his methods of accomplishing them, while Lamartine, who was in his company a large portion of the time, when questioned concerning him, replied that all he knew of M. Dantès was that he was a firm friend of the cause and an untiring worker in the interest of the weary and oppressed masses.
Debray, though he had no tangible foundation for it, could not get rid of the idea that the dangerous Deputy and the Count of Monte-Cristo were one and the same individual, but Beauchamp, with the usual incredulity of journalists, scoffed at the notion, and Château-Renaud derided it whenever it was mentioned in his presence.