"But why do you not stay in Toulon until the morning?"
"Impossible. I must hurry back to Beaussuet. I left the money at the vicarage."
"Wasn't that careless? A lonely vicarage, whose owner is absent—"
"I took good care of it; the portfolio containing the money is stowed safely away in a tight closet, the key of which I carry."
"But the portfolio must be a large one. It is not so easy to wrap up a million," said Benedetto, inquisitively.
"Yes, if I had to deliver the whole sum in coin; but that is not the case. Only a small part of the million is in gold, the rest is in bank-notes."
Benedetto nodded. He knew now exactly what he had desired to find out, and as the chaplain rose, and gently hinted that the time for the interview had expired, the convict turned to his mother, and weepingly said:
"Bless me, mother."
Madame Danglars placed her trembling hands on his head, and tenderly whispered:
"God be with you!"