"Up to this time I feel that you have had no secrets from me. Your heart is free, let it be your guide. Remember that love, often great happiness, is more often great sorrow.
"I love you, my son, though I leave you. I know not where I am going. I long to do good, and hope to find happiness.
"Dear, dear child! Oh! how I love you!
"Monte-Cristo."
CHAPTER XLIV.
ESPERANCE.
The youthful son of Monte-Cristo was twenty-two years of age, and wonderfully handsome. His dark curls shaded a fair, white brow, and his eyes were haughty like his father's. His slender white hands were womanly in their delicacy. But we will examine his surroundings.
Whenever Monte-Cristo established himself in a new home, the house became transformed as if a magician of the Arabian Nights had touched it with his wand. There was not a dark or gloomy corner to be seen. Lights blazed everywhere. The rarest pictures and choicest furniture were to be seen. Everything was magnificent and harmonious. The tall stature of the Count, his excessive pallor and the exaggerated attention he paid to his dress, added to this effect, as did the dark face of Ali, who, invariably draped in soft, white folds, stood like a bronze statue near the many colored portières. With the Vicomte, however, all colors were softer than with his father. The cabinet, for example, where we find him, was hung with gray and black velvet, and the rugs were fur, of the same soft gray.