Maximilian Morrel waited under the chestnut trees, pale and miserable. Valentine came to the garden by chance. She called the house a house of mourning, though the cup of sorrow was not yet full. He told her Franz d'Épinay had already reached Paris that morning. He had seen Franz arrive at Monte Cristo's house with Albert de Morcerf while they were talking about the Saint-Méran deaths. Valentine said her dying grandmother wanted the marriage contract signed as soon as Franz appeared. Maximilian asked whether she would fight the marriage at all. She said she could not disobey her father or disturb her grandmother's last days.
Their talk grew desperate. Maximilian offered to carry her away to his sister, marry her, and flee to Algiers, England, or America. Valentine refused and called the idea madness. When he pretended to leave forever, she seized his coat through the gate and demanded to know what he would do. He said he would not harm Franz, but would wait until the wedding, hope for some miracle, and then kill himself by a wood, abyss, or river after writing to his brother-in-law and the prefect of police. Valentine fell to her knees and begged him to live in suffering with her. At last she promised that if he would wait, she would be his. She promised by all that was sacred to her, by the memory of her mother, that she would refuse if dragged before priest or magistrate, and would flee with him at the gate if forced to sign. They agreed not to meet again until the crisis came. They kissed through the fence and parted.
The next day a letter came from Valentine. She had prayed for two hours at Saint-Philippe-du-Roule, but heaven was as stubborn as man. The contract would be signed that evening at nine o'clock. She asked Maximilian to meet her at quarter to nine. He checked with the notary Deschamps, visited Monte Cristo, and heard that Franz had already announced the ceremony. Morrel kept Valentine's secret but spent the day hiding ladders and a cabriolet in the clover-field. That evening he returned early, tormented his clocks, and watched the dark house where no wedding lights burned. He looked in vain for Valentine's white dress in the garden. When ten o'clock struck and she still had not come, he fixed his ladder and climbed the wall.
When the clocks passed nine-thirty, Maximilian climbed the wall and slipped through the garden. Behind a sycamore tree he heard Villefort talking with Doctor d'Avrigny. The doctor said Madame de Saint-Méran had not died from grief. Her convulsions matched poisoning by brucine or strychnine. He believed Barrois may have given her a dose prepared for paralyzed old Noirtier, who had been taking the poison as medicine for months. Villefort was horrified but begged the doctor to say nothing, fearing scandal in the house of a king's attorney. He said an inquest in his home was impossible. The doctor agreed to bury the secret but warned Villefort to watch for more deaths and to punish the culprit if one was found.
Morrel went on into the house. He found Valentine kneeling beside her grandmother's corpse, praying with broken words while the window stood open to the moon. She had been watching a cloud and imagining it was her grandmother's soul. Franz had arrived to sign the contract just as the old woman died. Worse still, her last wish was that the wedding should still go forward. Morrel told Valentine he had learned of the death from servants, not from the doctor's poison talk. When Villefort came upstairs, Valentine hid Maximilian and said he could not leave by the front door or the garden. The only safe path was through her grandfather's room. Barrois shut the door behind them while Valentine went first to Noirtier.
There she told her grandfather that Madame de Saint-Méran was dead and that she had no friend left but him. She brought Maximilian forward and said she loved him and would destroy herself if forced to marry Franz. Noirtier listened while Morrel used the dictionary and paper to explain his love and his plan to carry Valentine away in a waiting cabriolet. The old man refused. He also refused Morrel's second plan to provoke Franz into a duel, even when Morrel offered to fight fairly or die. When Morrel asked whether he should simply let events take their course, Noirtier told him to wait. When Morrel asked where help would come from, Noirtier answered that it would come from him. He promised the contract would not be signed and made Morrel swear on his honor to wait peacefully. Morrel kissed the old man's forehead, climbed back over the wall, found his cabriolet in the clover-field, and at midnight fell into exhausted sleep in the Rue Meslay.
