The baron’s daughter was engaged to Albert de Morcerf, but the Count of Morcerf had now come under a cloud, for his betrayal of Ali Pasha had been made public; and perhaps the Count of Monte Cristo could have told how the truth came out at last.  So the baron did not hesitate to break the engagement, and to accept as the suitor for his daughter a dashing young man known as Count Cavalcanti, who had been introduced to Paris by Monte Cristo, but concerning whose antecedents nothing seemed to be known.

The Count de Morcerf was tried for his betrayal of Ali, and seemed likely to be acquitted, when a veiled woman was brought to the place of trial, and testified before the committee that she was the daughter of Ali Pasha, and that Morcerf had not only betrayed her father to the Turks, but had sold her and her mother into slavery.  The veiled woman was Haidee, the ward of Monte Cristo.  The count was now a ruined man, and when his son Albert discovered the part that Monte Cristo had played, he publicly insulted the count at the opera.

A duel was averted, for Albert publicly apologised to the count when he learned the reasons for his actions.  Furious that he had not been avenged by his son, Morcerf rushed to the house of Monte Cristo.

“I came to tell you,” said Morcerf, “that as the young people of the present day will not fight, it remains for us to do it.”

“So much the better,” said Monte Cristo.  “Are you prepared?”

“Yes, sir; and witnesses are unnecessary, as we know each other so little.”

“Truly they are unnecessary,” said Monte Cristo, “but for the reason that we know each other well.  Are you not the soldier Fernand who deserted on the eve of Waterloo?  Are you not the Lieutenant Fernand who served as guide and spy to the French army in Spain?  Are you not the Captain Fernand who betrayed, sold, and murdered his benefactor, Ali?”

“Oh,” cried the general, “wretch, to reproach me with my shame!  Tell me your real name that I may pronounce it when I plunge my sword through your heart.”

At this Monte Cristo, bounding to a dressing room near, quickly pulled off his coat, and waistcoat, and, donning a sailor’s jacket and hat, was back in an instant.

Gazing for a moment in terror at this man who seemed to have risen from the dead to avenge his wrongs, Morcerf turned, seeking the wall to support him, and went out by the door uttering the cry—­“Edmond Dantes!”

Events marched rapidly now, and Paris had scarcely ceased talking of the suicide of the Count de Morcerf, when Cavalcanti, identified as a former galley-slave named Benedetto, was arrested for the murder of a fellow-convict.

Danglars fled from France, his great business in ruin.  With him he took a large sum of money belonging to Paris hospitals, which, however, was taken from him near Rome by brigands controlled by Monte Cristo.

IV.—­Vengeance is Complete