n in it."

"Raoul! Raoul!"

"Listen, monsieur. Never shall I accustom myself to the idea, that
Louise, the most chaste and the most innocent of women, has been able so
basely to deceive a man so honest and so true a lover as I am. Never can
I persuade myself that I see that sweet and good mask change into a
hypocritical and lascivious face. Louise lost! Louise infamous! Ah!
monseigneur, that idea is much more cruel to me than Raoul
abandoned--Raoul unhappy!"

Athos then employed the heroic remedy. He defended Louise against Raoul,
and justified her perfidy by her love. "A woman who would have yielded
to a king, because he is a king," said he, "would deserve to be styled
infamous; but Louise loves Louis. Both young, they have forgotten, he
his rank, she her vows. Love absolves everything, Raoul. The two young
people loved each other with sincerity."

And when he had dealt this severe poniard-thrust, Athos, with a sigh,
saw Raoul bound away under the cruel wound, and fly to the thickest
recesses of the wood, or the solitude of his chamber, whence, an hour
after, he would return, pale, trembling, but subdued. Then, coming up to
Athos with a smile, he would kiss his hand, like the dog who, having
been beaten, caresses a good master, to redeem his fault. Raoul redeemed
nothing but his weakness, and only confessed his grief. Thus passed away
the days that followed that scene in which Athos had so violently shaken
the indomitable pride of the king. Never, when conversing with his son,
did he make any allusion to that scene; never did he give him the
details of that vigorous lecture, which might, perhaps, have consoled
the young man, by showing him his rival humbled. Athos did not wish that
the offended lover should forget the respect due to the king. And when
Bragelonne, ardent, furious, and melancholy, spoke with contempt of
royal words, of the equivocal faith which certain madmen draw from
promises falling from thrones, when, passing over two centuries, with
the rapidity of a bird which traverses a narrow strait, to go from one
world to the other, Raoul ventured to predict the time in which kings
would become less than other men, Athos said to him, in his serene
persuasive voice, "You are right, Raoul; all that you say will happen;
kings will lose their privileges, as stars which have completed their
time lose their splendor. But when that moment shall come, Raoul, we
shall be dead. And remember well what I say to you. I