ced the effect so long desired. Aramis, suffering
at once in body and mind, had at length fixed his eyes and his thoughts
upon religion, and he had considered as a warning from heaven the
double accident which had happened to him; that is to say, the sudden
disappearance of his mistress and the wound in his shoulder.

It may be easily understood that in the present disposition of his
master nothing could be more disagreeable to Bazin than the arrival of
d'Artagnan, which might cast his master back again into that vortex of
mundane affairs which had so long carried him away. He resolved, then,
to defend the door bravely; and as, betrayed by the mistress of the inn,
he could not say that Aramis was absent, he endeavored to prove to the
newcomer that it would be the height of indiscretion to disturb his
master in his pious conference, which had commenced with the morning and
would not, as Bazin said, terminate before night.

But d'Artagnan took very little heed of the eloquent discourse of M.
Bazin; and as he had no desire to support a polemic discussion with his
friend's valet, he simply moved him out of the way with one hand, and
with the other turned the handle of the door of Number Five. The door
opened, and d'Artagnan went into the chamber.

Aramis, in a black gown, his head enveloped in a sort of round flat cap,
not much unlike a CALOTTE, was seated before an oblong table, covered
with rolls of paper and enormous volumes in folio. At his right hand
was placed the superior of the Jesuits, and on his left the curate
of Montdidier. The curtains were half drawn, and only admitted the
mysterious light calculated for beatific reveries. All the mundane
objects that generally strike the eye on entering the room of a young
man, particularly when that young man is a Musketeer, had disappeared as
if by enchantment; and for fear, no doubt, that the sight of them might
bring his master back to ideas of this world, Bazin had laid his hands
upon sword, pistols, plumed hat, and embroideries and laces of all kinds
and sorts. In their stead d'Artagnan thought he perceived in an obscure
corner a discipline cord suspended from a nail in the wall.

At the noise made by d'Artagnan in entering, Aramis lifted up his head,
and beheld his friend; but to the great astonishment of the young man,
the sight of him did not produce much effect upon the Musketeer, so
completely was his mind detached from the things of this world.

"Good day, dea