man turned visibly pale, and passed his hand tremblingly over
his face. "From poison?" he asked.

"From poison."

The prisoner reflected a moment. "My enemy must indeed have been very
cruel, or hard beset by necessity, to assassinate those two innocent
people, my sole support; for the worthy gentleman and the poor nurse had
never harmed a living being."

"In your family, monseigneur, necessity is stern. And so it is necessity
which compels me, to my great regret, to tell you that this gentleman
and the unhappy lady have been assassinated."

"Oh, you tell me nothing I am not aware of," said the prisoner, knitting
his brows.

"How?"

"I suspected it."

"Why?"

"I will tell you."

At this moment the young man, supporting himself on his two elbows,
drew close to Aramis' face, with such an expression of dignity, of
self-command, and of defiance even, that the bishop felt the electricity
of enthusiasm strike in devouring flashes from that seared heart of his,
into his brain of adamant.

"Speak, monseigneur. I have already told you that, by conversing with
you, I endanger my life. Little value as it has, I implore you to accept
it as the ransom of your own."

"Well," resumed the young man, "this is why I suspected that they had
killed my nurse and my preceptor."

"Whom you used to call your father."

"Yes; whom I called my father, but whose son I well knew I was not."

"Who caused you to suppose so?"

"For the same reason that you, monsieur, are too respectful for a
friend, he was also too respectful for a father."

"I, however," said Aramis, "have no intention to disguise myself."

The young man nodded assent, and continued:--"Undoubtedly, I was not
destined to perpetual seclusion," said the prisoner; "and that which
makes me believe so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to
render me as accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached
to my person taught me everything he knew himself--mathematics, a little
geometry, astronomy, fencing, and riding. Every morning I went through
military exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during
summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing up to
that period, except the respect paid me, had enlightened me, or even
roused my suspicions. I lived as children, as birds, as plants, as the
air and the sun do. I had just turned my fifteenth year--"

"This, then, is eight years ago?"

"Yes, nearly; but I have ceased to