should remain in the hearts of those present,
and in the memory of other men--a death which caused to be loved the
passage from this life to the other by those whose existence upon this
earth leads them not to dread the last judgment. Athos, preserved, even
in the eternal sleep, that placid and sincere smile--an ornament which
was to accompany him to the tomb. The quietude of his features, the calm
of his nothingness, made his servants for a long time doubt whether he
had really quitted life. The comte's people wished to remove Grimaud,
who from a distance devoured the face growing so pale, and did not
approach, from the pious fear of bringing to him the breath of death.
But Grimaud, fatigued as he was, refused to leave the room. He sat
himself down upon the threshold, watching his master with the vigilance
of a sentinel, and jealous to receive either his first waking look or
his last dying sigh. The noises were all quieted in the house, and every
one respected the slumber of their lord. But Grimaud, by anxiously
listening, perceived that the comte no longer breathed. He raised
himself, with his hands leaning on the ground, looked to see if there
did not appear some motion in the body of his master. Nothing! Fear
seized him; he rose completely up, and, at the very moment, heard some
one coming up the stairs. A noise of spurs knocking against a sword--a
warlike sound, familiar to his ears--stopped him as he was going toward
the bed of Athos. A voice still more sonorous than brass or steel
resounded within three paces of him.

"Athos! Athos! my friend!" cried this voice, agitated even to tears.

"Monsieur le Chevalier d'Artagnan!" faltered out Grimaud.

"Where is he? Where is he?" continued the musketeer.

Grimaud seized his arm in his bony fingers, and pointed to the bed, upon
the sheets of which the livid tints of the dead already showed.

A choked respiration, the opposite to a sharp cry, swelled the throat of
D'Artagnan. He advanced on tiptoe, trembling, frightened at the noise
his feet made upon the floor, and his heart rent by a nameless agony. He
placed his ear to the breast of Athos, his face to the comte's mouth.
Neither noise nor breath! D'Artagnan drew back. Grimaud, who had
followed him with his eyes, and for whom each of his movements had been
a revelation, came timidly, and seated himself at the foot of the bed,
and glued his lips to the sheet which was raised by the stiffened feet
of his master. Then la