rge drops began to flow from his red eyes. This
old man in despair, who wept, bent double without uttering a word,
presented the most moving spectacle that D'Artagnan, in a life so filled
with emotion, had ever met with.

The captain remained standing in contemplation before that smiling dead
man, who seemed to have kept his last thought, to make to his best
friend, to the man he had loved next to Raoul, a gracious welcome even
beyond life; and as if to reply to that exalted flattery of hospitality,
D'Artagnan went and kissed Athos fervently on the brow, and with his
trembling fingers closed his eyes. Then he seated himself by the pillow
without dread of that dead man, who had been so kind and affectionate to
him for thirty-five years; he fed himself greedily with the remembrances
which the noble visage of the comte brought to his mind in crowds--some
blooming and charming as that smile--some dark, dismal, and icy, as that
face with its eyes closed for eternity.

All at once, the bitter flood which mounted from minute to minute
invaded his heart, and swelled his breast almost to bursting. Incapable
of mastering his emotion, he arose, and tearing himself violently from
the chamber where he had just found dead him to whom he came to report
the news of the death of Porthos, he uttered sobs so heart-rending, that
the servants, who seemed only to wait for an explosion of grief,
answered to it by their lugubrious clamors, and the dogs of the late
comte by their lamentable howlings. Grimaud was the only one who did not
lift up his voice. Even in the paroxysm of his grief he would not have
dared to profane the dead, or for the first time disturb the slumber of
his master. Athos had accustomed him never to speak.

At daybreak, D'Artagnan, who had wandered about the lower hall biting
his fingers to stifle his sighs--D'Artagnan went up once more; and
watching the moment when Grimaud turned his head toward him, he made him
a sign to come to him, which the faithful servant obeyed without making
more noise than a shadow. D'Artagnan went down again followed by
Grimaud; and when he had gained the vestibule, taking the old man's
hands, "Grimaud," said he, "I have seen how the father died; now let me
know how the son died."

Grimaud drew from his breast a large letter, upon the envelope of which
was traced the address of Athos. He recognized the writing of M. de
Beaufort, broke the seal, and began to read, walking about in the first