1. What did you think of them suspecting Valentine? For me, it’s a great twist I didn’t see coming. And the conversation about killing her to spare his honor was crazy.

2. I feel like there’s a mistake here, the doctor says the old man was the intended target, and the servant was an accident, but he was told in the last chapter that Valentine encouraged Barrois to drink it, so shouldn’t that clear her?

3. It settled a plot hole that was bothering me, the doctor sent medicine to the in-laws through the family, so that’s how the “ghost” poisoned him so far away. It feels a little contrived, but I can buy it.

Final Line:

She was in tears, and, strange as it was, in spite of the emotions he felt at the sight of these tears, he looked also at Madame de Villefort, and it appeared to him as if a slight gloomy smile had passed over her thin lips, like a meteor seen passing inauspiciously between two clouds in a stormy sky.

Previous Discussion

The next discussion will be up this Wednesday.