ery singular," said Fouquet.

"Your memory is treacherous, my dear monseigneur; look in another
drawer."

Fouquet took out the bundle of papers, and turned them over once more;
he then became very pale.

"Don't confine your search to that drawer," said Aramis; "look
elsewhere."

"Quite useless; I have never made a mistake; no one but myself arranges
any papers of mine of this nature; no one but myself ever opens this
drawer, of which, besides, no one, with my own exception, is aware of
the secret."

"What do you conclude, then?" said Aramis, agitated.

"That Mazarin's receipt has been stolen from me; Madame de Chevreuse was
right, chevalier; I have appropriated the public funds; I have robbed
the state coffers of thirteen millions of money; I am a thief, Monsieur
d'Herblay."

"Nay, nay; do not get irritated--do not get excited."

"And why not, chevalier? surely there is even reason for it. If the
legal proceedings are well arranged, and a judgment is given in
accordance with them, your friend the surintendant can follow to
Montfaucon his colleague Enguerrand de Marigny, and his predecessor,
Semblancay."

"Oh!" said Aramis, smiling, "not so fast as that."

"And why not? why not so fast? What do you suppose Madame de Chevreuse
will have done with those letters, for you refused them, I suppose?"

"Yes; at once. I suppose that she went and sold them to M. Colbert."

"Well?"

"I said I supposed so; I might have said I was sure of it, for I had her
followed, and, when she left me, she returned to her own house, went out
by a back door, and proceeded straight to the intendant's house in the
street Croix des Petits-Champs."

"Legal proceedings will be instituted, then, scandal and dishonor will
follow, and all will fall upon me like a thunderbolt, blindly,
harshly, pitilessly."

Aramis approached Fouquet, who sat trembling in his chair, close to the
open drawers; he placed his hand on his shoulder, and, in an
affectionate tone of voice, said:

"Do not forget that the position of M. Fouquet can in no way be compared
to that of Semblancay or of Marigny."

"And why not, in Heaven's name?"

"Because the proceedings against those ministers were determined,
completed, and the sentence carried out, while in your case the same
thing cannot take place."

"Another blow, why not? A peculator is, under any circumstances, a
criminal."

"Those criminals who know how to find a safe asylum are never in
danger."