ole body, and walk round the carriage with an
unsteady and almost tottering step. It seemed as if the poor prisoner
was unaccustomed to walk on God's earth. It was the 15th of August,
about eleven o'clock at night; thick clouds, portending a tempest,
overspread the heavens, and shrouded all light, and prospect beneath
their heavy folds. The extremities of the avenues were imperceptibly
detached from the copse, by a lighter shadow of opaque gray, which, upon
closer examination, became visible in the midst of the obscurity. But
the fragrance which ascended from the grass, fresher and more
penetrating than that which exhaled from the trees around him; the warm
and balmy air which enveloped him for the first time for many years
past; the ineffable enjoyment of liberty in an open country, spoke to
the prince in so seducing a language, that notwithstanding the great
caution, we would almost say the dissimulation of his character, of
which we have tried to give an idea, he could not restrain his emotion,
and breathed a sigh of joy. Then, by degrees, he raised his aching head
and inhaled the perfumed air, as it was wafted in gentle gusts across
his uplifted face. Crossing his arms on his chest as if to control this
new sensation of delight, he drank in delicious draughts of that
mysterious air which penetrates at night-time through lofty forests. The
sky he was contemplating, the murmuring waters, the moving creatures,
was not this reality? Was not Aramis a madman to suppose that he had
aught else to dream of in this world? Those exciting pictures of country
life, so free from cares, from fears, and troubles, that ocean of happy
days which glitters incessantly before all youthful imaginations, are
real allurements wherewith to fascinate a poor, unhappy prisoner, worn
out by prison life, and emaciated by the close air of the Bastille.

It was the picture, it will be remembered, drawn by Aramis, when he
offered the thousand pistoles which he had with him in the carriage to
the prince, and the enchanted Eden which the deserts of Bas-Poiton hid
from the eyes of the world. Such were the reflections of Aramis as he
watched, with an anxiety impossible to describe, the silent progress of
the emotions of Philippe, whom he perceived gradually becoming more and
more absorbed in his meditations. The young prince was offering up an
inward prayer to Heaven, to be divinely guided in this trying moment,
upon which his life or death depended. It