of your own friends, indeed; M. d'Herblay."

"M. d'Herblay! Aramis!"

"Just so; he has been very kind towards me."

"Kind! to make you enter into such a bargain!"

"Listen! I wished to leave the cardinal's service. M. d'Herblay spoke on
my behalf to Louviere and Tremblay--they objected; I wished to have the
appointment very much, for I knew what it could be made to produce;
in my distress I confided in M. d'Herblay, and he offered to become my
surety for the different payments."

"You astound me! Aramis become your surety?"

"Like a man of honor; he procured the signature; Tremblay and Louviere
resigned their appointments, I have paid every year twenty-five thousand
francs to these two gentlemen; on the thirty-first of May every year,
M. d'Herblay himself comes to the Bastile, and brings me five thousand
pistoles to distribute between my crocodiles."

"You owe Aramis one hundred and fifty thousand francs, then?"

"That is the very thing which is the cause of my despair, for I only owe
him one hundred thousand."

"I don't quite understand you."

"He came and settled with the vampires only two years. To-day, however,
is the thirty-first of May, and he has not been yet, and to-morrow, at
midday, the payment falls due; if, therefore, I don't pay to-morrow,
those gentlemen can, by the terms of the contract, break off the
bargain; I shall be stripped of everything; I shall have worked for
three years, and given two hundred and fifty thousand francs for
nothing, absolutely for nothing at all, dear M. d'Artagnan."

"This is very strange," murmured D'Artagnan.

"You can now imagine that I may well have wrinkles on my forehead, can
you not?"

"Yes, indeed!"

"And you can imagine, too, that notwithstanding I may be as round as a
cheese, with a complexion like an apple, and my eyes like coals on fire,
I may almost be afraid that I shall not have a cheese or an apple left
me to eat, and that my eyes will be left me only to weep with."

"It is really a very grievous affair."

"I have come to you, M. d'Artagnan, for you are the only man who can get
me out of my trouble."

"In what way?"

"You are acquainted with the Abbe d'Herblay and you know that he is a
somewhat mysterious gentleman."

"Yes."

"Well, you can, perhaps, give me the address of his presbytery, for I
have been to Noisy-le-Sec, and he is no longer there."

"I should think not, indeed. He is Bishop of Vannes."

"What! Vannes in Bretagne?"