horses until you have tired him
to death."

And drawing Raoul toward him, he embraced him as he would have done his
own child. Athos did the like; only it was very visible that the kiss
was more affectionate, and the pressure of his lips still warmer with
the father than with the friend. The young man again looked at both his
companions, endeavoring to penetrate their real meaning, or their real
feelings, with the utmost strength of his intelligence; but his look was
powerless upon the smiling countenance of the musketeer, or upon the
calm and composed features of the Comte de la Fere. "Where are you
going, Raoul?" inquired the latter, seeing that Bragelonne was preparing
to go out.

"To my own apartments," replied the latter, in his soft and sad voice.

"We shall be sure to find you there, then, if we should have anything to
say to you?"

"Yes, monsieur; but do you suppose it likely you will have something to
say to me?"

"How can I tell?" said Athos.

"Yes, something fresh to console you with," said D'Artagnan, pushing him
toward the door.

Raoul, observing the perfect composure which marked every gesture of his
two friends, quitted the comte's room, carrying away with him nothing
but the individual feeling of his own particular distress.

"Thank Heaven," he said, "since that is the case, I need only think of
myself."

And wrapping himself in his cloak, in order to conceal from the
passers-by in the streets his gloomy and sorrowful face, he quitted
them, for the purpose of returning to his own rooms, as he had promised
Porthos. The two friends watched the young man as he walked away with a
feeling akin to pity; only each expressed it in a very different way.

"Poor Raoul!" said Athos, sighing deeply.

"Poor Raoul!" said D'Artagnan, shrugging his shoulders.

CHAPTER LXVII.

HEU! MISER!

"Poor Raoul!" had said Athos. "Poor Raoul!" had said D'Artagnan; and, in
point of fact, to be pitied by both these men, Raoul must indeed have
been most unhappy. And therefore, when he found himself alone, face to
face, as it were, with his own troubles, leaving behind him the intrepid
friend and the indulgent father; when he recalled the avowal of the
king's affection, which had robbed him of Louise de la Valliere, whom he
loved so deeply, he felt his heart almost breaking, as indeed we all
have at least once in our lives, at the first illusion destroyed, at our
first affection betrayed. "Oh!" he murmured, "