"I hope, I trust, I believe, dear, that all is over--at least all that will take me from you, as during the past week. France has or will have a Republic. That is as certain as fate can make it. But first she will have to pass through strife and tribulation--perhaps bloodshed. The end surely, love, is not yet. But France is now comparatively free. The dreadful problem is now nearer solution than it ever was. Labor will hereafter be granted to all, together with the adequate reward of labor. Destitution will not be deemed guilt. The death-penalty is abolished. The rich will not with impunity grind the poor into powder beneath their heels. Asylums for the suffering, the distressed, the abandoned of both sexes will be sustained. The efforts which, as individuals, we have some of us made for years to ameliorate the condition of mankind, to assuage human woes and augment human joys, will henceforth be encouraged and directly aided by the State. This Revolution, love, is a social Revolution, and during the sixty-four hours the Provisional Government was in session, in the Hotel de Ville, I became thoroughly convinced that the thousands and tens of thousands who, with sleepless vigilance, watched their proceedings, had learned the deep lesson too well to be further deceived, and that the fruits of the Revolution they had won would not again be snatched from their lips." "And the result of this triumph of the people you believe has advanced the cause of human happiness?" asked Mercedes. "Most unquestionably, dear, and most incalculably, too, perhaps." "All your friends are not as disinterested as you have been, Edmond," said Mercedes. "And why think you that, dear?" "For six full years I know you have devoted all your powers of mind and body and all your immense wealth to one single object." "And that object?" "Has been the happiness of your race." "Well, dear?" "And now, when a triumph has been achieved--now, when others, who have been but mere instruments--blind instruments, many of them, in your hands to accomplish they knew not what--come forward and assume place and power--you, Edmond, the noble author and first cause of all, remain quietly in seclusion, unknown, unnamed, unappreciated and uncommended, while the others reap the fruits of your toil!" "Well, dear?" said Dantes, smiling at the warmth of his wife in his behalf. "But it is not 'well,' Edmond. I say no one is as disinterested as you." "Ah! love, what of ambition?" Mercedes smiled.