When Villefort arrived at his own house he found everything in confusion.  Making his way to his wife’s apartments, he had the horror of meeting her while she still lived, just at the very instant when the poison she had taken did its work, and of finding a moment or two after that she had poisoned his little son Edward.

This was more than the brain of man could endure, and Villefort turned from the tragic scene a raving madman, rushing wildly to the garden, and beginning to dig with a spade.

The vengeance of Edmond Dantes, so long delayed, so carefully and laboriously planned, was now complete, and it only remained for him to perform the last of his marvels, at the same time giving proof of his boundless generosity.  Valentine de Villefort had been buried, and Maximilian was in despair; but Monte Cristo urged the young man to have patience and hope.

It seemed a strange thing to ask a lover whose sweetheart had been placed within the tomb to have hope and to come to Monte Cristo in one month.  But this was the bargain they made.

When the month had passed, Maximilian came to the isle of Monte Cristo.

“I have your word,” he said to the count, “that you would help me die or give me Valentine!”

“Ah!  A miracle alone can save you—­the resurrection of Valentine!  Thus do I fulfil my promise!”

Monte Cristo turned to a jewelled cabinet, and took from it a tube of greenish paste.  Maximilian swallowed some of the mysterious substance, which was but hashish.  He sat down and waited.

“Monte Cristo,” he said, “I feel that I am dying—­good-bye!”

Meanwhile, Monte Cristo had opened a door from which a great light streamed.  Maximilian opened his eyes, looked towards the light; and then—­he saw Valentine!

Then Monte Cristo spoke.  “He calls you, Valentine, even as he thinks he dies by his own will.  But even as I saved you from the tomb, so have I saved him.  I feared for his reason if he saw you, except in a trance—­ from his trance he will wake to happiness!”

Next morning Valentine and Maximilian were walking on the beach, when Jacopo, the captain of Monte Cristo’s yacht, gave them a letter.  As they looked on the superscription they cried, simultaneously, “Gone!”

In his letter, Monte Cristo, said:  “All that is in this grotto, my friend, my house in the Champs Elysees, and my chateau at Treport, are the marriage gifts bestowed by Edmond Dantes upon the son of his old master, Morrel.  Mademoiselle de Villefort will share them with you; for I entreat her to give to the poor the immense fortune reverting to her from her father, now a madman, and her brother, who died last September with his mother.”

“But where is the count?” asked Morrel eagerly.  Jacopo pointed towards the horizon, where a white sail was visible.

“And where is Haidee?” asked Valentine.  Jacopo still pointed towards the sail.