"You leave off?"

"Yes; my head becomes confused and my ideas melancholy; I feel ennui
overtaking me; I wish--"

"What?"

"I don't know; but I do not like to give myself up to longing for things
which I do not possess, when I am so happy with what I have."

"You are afraid of death?" said Aramis, with a slight uneasiness.

"Yes," said the young man, smiling.

Aramis felt the chill of that smile, and shuddered. "Oh, as you fear
death, you know more about matters than you say," he cried.

"And you," returned the prisoner, "who bade me to ask to see you--you,
who, when I did ask for you, came here promising a world of
confidence--how is it that, nevertheless, it is you who are silent, and
'tis I who speak? Since, then, we both wear masks, either let us both
retain them or put them aside together."

Aramis felt the force and justice of the remark, saying to himself,
"This is no ordinary man; I must be cautious. Are you ambitious?" said
he suddenly to the prisoner aloud, without preparing him for the
alteration.

"What do you mean by ambition?" replied the youth.

"It is," replied Aramis, "a feeling which prompts a man to desire more
than he has."

"I said that I was contented, monsieur; but perhaps I deceive myself. I
am ignorant of the nature of ambition; but it is not impossible I may
have some. Tell me your mind; 'tis all I wish."

"An ambitious man," said Aramis, "is one who covets what is beyond his
station."

"I covet nothing beyond my station," said the young man, with an
assurance of manner which for the second time made the bishop of Vannes
tremble.

He was silent. But to look at the kindling eye, the knitted brow, and
the reflective attitude of the captive, it was evident that he expected
something more than silence--a silence which Aramis now broke. "You lied
the first time I saw you," said he.

"Lied!" cried the young man, starting up on his couch, with such a tone
in his voice, and such a lightning in his eyes, that Aramis recoiled in
spite of himself.

"I _should_ say," returned Aramis, bowing, "you concealed from me what
you knew of your infancy."

"A man's secrets are his own, monsieur," retorted the prisoner, "and not
at the mercy of the first chance-comer."

"True," said Aramis, bowing still lower than before, "'tis true; pardon
me, but to-day do I still occupy the place of a chance-comer? I beseech
you to reply, monseigneur."

This title slightly disturbed the prisoner; but nev