As Monte Cristo and Maximilien leave Paris, the Count asks young Morrel if he regrets coming with him. Maximilien, of course, confesses his terrible and agonizing grief for Valentine, but Monte Cristo urges him to remember that, above all, the friends whom one loses to death are in our hearts forever — not in the earth. He asks Maximilien to give up his gloomy mood. The two men then make a sea journey that is characterized by one of the Count's passions — that is, speed. And even Maximilien allows himself to feel the intoxication of the wind in his hair.
After they have docked at Marseilles, Maximilien goes to the cemetery where his father is buried, and Monte Cristo goes to call on Mercedes, who is living in the house that Dantès' father once lived in. (Mercédès, we are told, found the money that Dantès buried twenty-four years before.) She is sitting in an arbor, weeping when the Count finds her. He tells her that Albert did the right thing when he joined the military service, that he will now become strong through adversity. Staying in Marseilles would only have made Albert bitter. Mercédès is profuse in her gratitude for all that Dantès has done, but he demurs; he was only an agent of God, he says, bringing disaster and suffering on the villains who were responsible for his captivity, his long years of imprisoned solitude, and his measureless sorrow. He is only a single part of a great design. He tells Mercédès that perhaps some day she will let him share his wealth with her, and she agrees to accept his generosity — but only with Albert's permission. Then she touches the Count's trembling hand and tells him au revoir (until we meet again) instead of goodbye. As she looks away toward the harbor, her eyes are not on the Count's slowly diminishing figure; instead, they are on a single, tiny ship far in the distance that carries her son away from her. Yet in her heart, a small voice murmurs, "Edmond! Edmond!"
