The Law — The Count of Monte Cristo

While Eugénie and Louise escape unnoticed, Madame Danglars first seeks Lucien Debray at his club, waits among the flower baskets she sent that morning, and returns home before midnight without finding him. She bolts Eugénie's door, hears nothing, and sleeps believing her daughter collapsed from the evening's excitement; only in the morning does she grasp the contract scandal as disgrace and remember how little pity she showed Mercédès.

The baroness drives to Villefort's plague-shuttered house, passes whistles and a watched tradesman in the court, and begs the procureur not as magistrate but as friend to soften the case against Andrea Cavalcanti, whom she still calls an impostor. Villefort answers with funeral calm: mischance, not misfortune; orders already issued; five days until trial; no delay even for her. When she hints at the poison deaths in his own household, he swears at the crucifix that discovered criminals shall die and delivers his speech on being the law, not a man moved by a siren's voice.

Madame Danglars asks whether Benedetto can be left in prison until Eugénie marries, whether flight should count as pardonable inaction, whether assizes can wait six months. Villefort refuses each plea, names the galley record and murder charge, and says he too seeks forgetfulness in work while suffering at home. He reads her thought about unpunished crimes under his roof and turns the question back until she owns it.

A dragoon brings the Minister of the Interior despatch; Villefort cries that Andrea was taken at Compiègne and all is over. Madame Danglars rises pale and leaves while the king's attorney, almost joyful, conducts her to the door and strikes the letter on his desk: he had forgeries, robberies, arson, and only wanted a murder for a splendid session.