Cold wind shakes yellow leaves along the boulevards as Valentine's funeral crosses Paris toward Père-Lachaise, where the Saint-Méran and Villefort vault already holds her kin. More than five hundred mourners follow the hearse on foot while Debray, Château-Renaud, and Beauchamp gossip about the contract she never signed. Monte Cristo leaves his carriage and searches the crowd for Morrel, who has hidden behind the tomb of Abélard and Héloïse to watch every detail of the burial from a tree overlooking the mausoleum.
When the speeches end the count vanishes, follows Morrel to the abandoned tomb, and hears him kneel at the grating with a whispered Oh, Valentine. Morrel answers the touch on his shoulder by saying he was praying, refuses a ride back to Paris, and walks slowly toward the Rue Meslay while the count dismisses his carriage and follows a hundred paces behind.
At the Morrel house Julie greets the count in the garden, but he runs upstairs to Maximilian's locked room, hears silence behind a red curtain, and shatters a glass pane with his elbow rather than ring a bell that might hasten a shot. He finds ink-stained fingers, pistols beside the desk, and a hidden letter proving suicide; Morrel accuses him of false hopes and vain promises when he could not save Valentine from poison. The count seizes his wrist, lays aside both masks, and names himself Edmond Dantès, the man who saved Morrel's father, sent the purse to Julie, and nursed the child on his knees.
Morrel falls at his feet and calls Julie and Emmanuel to witness their benefactor; the count weeps while Julie raises the crystal globe over the Allées de Meilhan purse. Alone again he tells Morrel that without Valentine the earth is desolate, yet orders him to hope because grief always leaves something beyond. When persuasion fails he binds the young man on honor to wait one month to the day and hour, swearing that on September fifth, ten years after he saved old Morrel's life, he will place loaded pistols and Italian poison on the table if consolation has not come. Morrel swears not to die before then, learns Haydée departed last night to wait for the count, and agrees to lead him unseen from the house while occupying her vacant rooms.
Coming Up in Chapter 106
After Morrel swears the one-month pact and Haydée's rooms are offered in her place, Debray will divide two millions with Madame Danglars in a Rue Saint-Germain lodging while Mercédès and Albert count francs upstairs.
