"I heard of a scandalous suit, but I was not in France."
"No, you had fled. You were not here when, in the court-room, I flung my hatred and my loathing at the head of the Procureur du Roi—at the head of my father, Monsieur de Villefort. And do you know the name of my mother?"
"It was never given."
"I will tell it to you, nevertheless. She was Madame Danglars."
The banker started to his feet, his whole frame twitching nervously.
"It is not true! It is not true!" he cried.
"She was my mother, I tell you, and I punished her as she deserved, for I killed her!"
"Horrible! Horrible!" And the wretched man who listened to these words wrung his hands.
"Yes, and here is the proof."
Benedetto drew from his pocketbook the paper on which Sanselme had written the lines he had dictated.