The two men did not move nor speak. They seemed to feel that no human voice should break this awful stillness.
Monte-Cristo walked to the side of the bed and looked at his son, long and steadily. What thoughts were hidden in that active brain?
And now Fanfar beheld a terrible, unheard-of thing. When Monte-Cristo entered, his hair was black as night, and as he stood there his hair began to whiten. What terrible torture that man must have undergone in those minutes. Age, which had made no mark on this organization of iron, suddenly took possession of it. First, his temples looked as if light snow was thrown upon it, and then by degrees the whole head became white. Those who saw this sight will never forget it.
Monte-Cristo bent low over the bier on which Esperance lay. He took his son in his arms as a mother lifts her child from the cradle, and bearing the body Monte-Cristo left the room.
Suddenly shaking off the torpor which had held them motionless, Fanfar and Goutran started in pursuit. But in vain did they search the hôtel, Monte-Cristo had vanished with the body of his son.
CHAPTER LXIX.
EPILOGUE.
A man stood on a solitary rock. Suddenly he uttered a shout of triumph.