who suffers
for the first time. I am paying a tribute that will not be paid a second
time; permit me to plunge myself so deeply in my grief that I may forget
myself in it, that I may drown even my reason in it."

"Raoul! Raoul!"

"Listen, monsieur. Never shall I accustom myself to the idea that
Louise, the chastest and most innocent of women, has been able to so
basely deceive a man so honest and so true a lover as myself. Never can
I persuade myself that I see that sweet and noble mask change into
a hypocritical lascivious face. Louise lost! Louise infamous!
Ah! monseigneur, that idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul
abandoned--Raoul unhappy!"

Athos then employed the heroic remedy. He defended Louise against Raoul,
and justified her perfidy by her love. "A woman who would have yielded
to a king because he is a king," said he, "would deserve to be styled
infamous; but Louise loves Louis. Young, both, they have forgotten, he
his rank, she her vows. Love absolves everything, Raoul. The two young
people love each other with sincerity."

And when he had dealt this severe poniard-thrust, Athos, with a sigh,
saw Raoul bound away beneath the rankling wound, and fly to the thickest
recesses of the wood, or the solitude of his chamber, whence, an hour
after, he would return, pale, trembling, but subdued. Then, coming up
to Athos with a smile, he would kiss his hand, like the dog who, having
been beaten, caresses a respected master, to redeem his fault. Raoul
redeemed nothing but his weakness, and only confessed his grief. Thus
passed away the days that followed that scene in which Athos had
so violently shaken the indomitable pride of the king. Never, when
conversing with his son, did he make any allusion to that scene; never
did he give him the details of that vigorous lecture, which might,
perhaps, have consoled the young man, by showing him his rival humbled.
Athos did not wish that the offended lover should forget the respect due
to his king. And when Bragelonne, ardent, angry, and melancholy, spoke
with contempt of royal words, of the equivocal faith which certain
madmen draw from promises that emanate from thrones, when, passing over
two centuries, with that rapidity of a bird that traverses a narrow
strait to go from one continent to the other, Raoul ventured to predict
the time in which kings would be esteemed as less than other men, Athos
said to him, in his serene, persuasive voice, "You are right, Raoul;
all