What do you know about that?" said he.

"But nevertheless, it appears to me--"

"M. de Baisemeaux," said Aramis, turning round in his chair, "here is
your servant, who wishes to speak with you;" and, at this moment, De
Baisemeaux's servant appeared at the threshold of the door.

"What is it?" asked Baisemeaux, sharply.

"Monsieur," said the man, "they are bringing you the doctor's return."

Aramis looked at De Baisemeaux with a calm and confident eye.

"Well," said he, "let the messenger enter."

The messenger entered, saluted, and handed in the report. Baisemeaux ran
his eye over it, and raising his head said, in surprise, "No. 12 is
ill."

"How was it, then," said Aramis, carelessly, "that you told me everybody
was well in your hotel, M. de Baisemeaux?" And he emptied his glass
without removing his eyes from Baisemeaux.

The governor then made a sign to the messenger, and when he had quitted
the room said, still trembling, "I think that there is in the article,
'on the prisoner's demand.'"

"Yes, it is so," answered Aramis. "But, see what it is they want with
you now."

At that moment a sergeant put his head in at the door. "What do you want
now?" cried Baisemeaux. "Can you not leave me in peace for ten minutes?"

"Monsieur," said the sergeant, "the sick man, No. 12, has commissioned
the turnkey to request you to send him a confessor."

Baisemeaux very nearly sank on the floor; but Aramis disdained to
reassure him, just as he had disdained to terrify him. "What must I
answer?" inquired Baisemeaux.

"Just what you please," replied Aramis, compressing his lips; "that is
your business. _I_ am not governor of the Bastille."

"Tell the prisoner," cried Baisemeaux, quickly--"tell the prisoner that
his request is granted." The sergeant left the room. "Oh, monseigneur,
monseigneur," murmured Baisemeaux, "how could I have suspected!--how
could I have foreseen this?"

"Who requested you to suspect, and who besought you to foresee?"
contemptuously answered Aramis. "The order suspects; the order knows;
the order foresees--is not that enough?"

"What do you command?" added Baisemeaux.

"I?--nothing at all. I am nothing but a poor priest, a simple confessor.
Have I your orders to go and see the sufferer?"

"O, monseigneur, I do not order; I pray you to go."

"'Tis well; then conduct me to him."

CHAPTER LXXV.

THE PRISONER.

Since Aramis' singular transformation into a confessor of the order,
B