."

This letter was from Monk.

CHAPTER 33. The Audience.

"Well?" cried Athos with a mild look of reproach when D'Artagnan had
read the letter addressed to him by Monk.

"Well!" said D'Artagnan, red with pleasure, and a little with shame,
at having so hastily accused the king and Monk. "This is a
politeness,--which leads to nothing, it is true, but yet it is a
politeness."

"I had great difficulty in believing the young prince ungrateful," said
Athos.

"The fact is, that his present is still too near his past," replied
D'Artagnan; "after all, everything to the present moment proved me
right."

"I acknowledge it, my dear friend, I acknowledge it. Ah! there is your
cheerful look returned. You cannot think how delighted I am."

"Thus you see," said D'Artagnan, "Charles II. receives M. Monk at nine
o'clock; he will receive me at ten; it is a grand audience, of the sort
which at the Louvre are called 'distributions of court holy water.'
Come, let us go and place ourselves under the spout, my dear friend!
Come along."

Athos replied nothing; and both directed their steps, at a quick pace,
towards the palace of St. James's, which the crowd still surrounded,
to catch, through the windows, the shadows of the courtiers, and the
reflection of the royal person. Eight o'clock was striking when the
two friends took their places in the gallery filled with courtiers and
politicians. Every one looked at these simply-dressed men in foreign
costumes, at these two noble heads so full of character and meaning.
On their side, Athos and D'Artagnan, having with two glances taken the
measure of the whole assembly, resumed their chat.

A great noise was suddenly heard at the extremity of the gallery,--it
was General Monk, who entered, followed by more than twenty officers,
all eager for a smile, as only the evening before he was master of all
England, and a glorious morrow was looked to, for the restorer of the
Stuart family.

"Gentlemen," said Monk, turning round, "henceforward I beg you to
remember that I am no longer anything. Lately I commanded the principal
army of the republic; now that army is the king's, into whose hands I am
about to surrender, at his command, my power of yesterday."

Great surprise was painted on all the countenances, and the circle of
adulators and suppliants which surrounded Monk an instant before, was
enlarged by degrees, and ended by being lost in the large undulations
of the crowd. Mo