"Yes; we have never had the happiness of pressing his hand," continued Maximilian. "We have supplicated Heaven in vain to grant us this favor, but all the affair has had a mysterious direction we cannot comprehend—all has been guided by a hand invisible, but powerful us that of an enchanter."
"Oh!" cried Julie, "I have not lost all hope of some day kissing that hand, as I now kiss the purse which he has touched. Four years ago, Penelon was at Trieste—Penelon, M. le Comte, is the old sailor you saw in the garden, and who, from quartermaster, has become gardener. Penelon, when he was at Trieste, saw on the quay an Englishman, who was on the point of embarking on board a yacht, and he recognized him as the person who called on my father the 5th of June, 1829, and who wrote me this letter on the 5th of September. He felt convinced of his identity, but he did not venture to address him."
"An Englishman!" said Monte-Cristo, who grew uneasy at the attention with which Julie looked at him. "An Englishman, you say?"
"Yes," replied Maximilian, "an Englishman, who represented himself as the confidential clerk of the house of Thomson and French, at Rome. It was this that made me start when you said the other day, at M. de MorcerPs, that Messrs. Thomson and French were your bankers. That happened, as I told you, in 1829. For God's sake, tell me, did you know this Englishman?"
"But you tell me also, that the house of Thomson and French have constantly denied having rendered you this service?"
"Yes."
"Then is it not probable that this Englishman may be some one who, grateful for a kindness your father had shown him, and which he himself had forgotten, has taken this method of requiting the obligation?"
"Everything is possible on such an occasion, even a miracle."
"What was his name?" asked Monte-Cristo.
"He gave no other name," answered Julie, looking earnestly at the count, "than that at the end of his letter 'Sindbad the Sailor.'"
"Which is evidently not his real name, but a fictitious one."
Then noticing that Julia was struck with the sound of his voice—
"Tell me," continued he, "was he not about my height, perhaps a little taller, his chin imprisoned, to use the word, in a high cravat; his coat closely buttoned up, and constantly taking out his pencil?"
"Oh, do you then know him?" cried Julie, whose eyes sparkled with
"No," returned Monte-Cristo, "I only guessed. I knew a Lord Wilmore, who was constantly doing actions of this kind."
"Without revealing himself?"
