rang. It was my preceptor come back again. I had but just time. I
calculated that it would take ten minutes before he would gain my place
of concealment even if, guessing where I was, he came straight to it;
and twenty if he were obliged to look for me. But this was time enough
to allow me to read the cherished letter, whose fragments I hastened to
unite again. The writing was already fading, but I managed to decipher
it all."

"And what read you there, monseigneur?" asked Aramis, deeply interested.

"Quite enough, monsieur, to see that my tutor was a man of noble rank,
and that Perronnette, without being a lady of quality, was far better
than a servant; and also to perceive that I must myself be high-born,
since the queen, Anne of Austria, and Mazarin, the prime minister,
commended me so earnestly to their care." Here the young man paused,
quite overcome.

"And what happened?" asked Aramis.

"It happened, monsieur," answered he, "that the workmen they had
summoned found nothing in the well, after the closest search; that my
governor perceived that the brink was all watery; that I was not so well
dried by the sun as to escape Dame Perronnette's observing that my
garments were moist; and, lastly, that I was seized with a violent
fever, owing to the chill and the excitement of my discovery, an attack
of delirium supervening, during which I related the whole adventure; so
that, guided by my avowal, my governor found, under the bolster, the two
pieces of the queen's letter."

"Ah!" said Aramis, "now I understand."

"Beyond this all is conjecture. Doubtless the unfortunate lady and
gentleman, not daring to keep the occurrence secret, wrote all to the
queen, and sent back to her the torn letter."

"After which," said Aramis, "you were arrested and removed to the
Bastille."

"As you see."

"Then your two attendants disappeared?"

"Alas!"

"Let us not take up our time with the dead, but see what can be done
with the living. You told me you were resigned."

"I repeat it."

"Without any desire for freedom?"

"As I told you."

"Without ambition, sorrow, or even thought?"

The young man made no answer.

"Well," asked Aramis, "why are you silent?"

"I think I have spoken enough," answered the prisoner; "and that now it
is your turn. I am weary."

Aramis gathered himself up, and a shade of deep solemnity spread itself
over his countenance. It was evident that he had reached the crisis in
the part he had co