im privately a few words, to which the latter responded by an
affirmative sign. He then returned with the same slow step and said:

"Go and tell the dying man that he must be patient. Monseigneur will be
with him in an hour."

"Good!" said Friquet, "my fortune is made."

"By the way," said Bazin, "where was he carried?"

"To the tower Saint Jacques la Boucherie;" and delighted with the
success of his embassy, Friquet started off at the top of his speed.

When the Te Deum was over, the coadjutor, without stopping to change
his priestly dress, took his way toward that old tower which he knew
so well. He arrived in time. Though sinking from moment to moment, the
wounded man was not yet dead. The door was opened to the coadjutor of
the room in which the mendicant was suffering.

A moment later Friquet went out, carrying in his hand a large leather
bag; he opened it as soon as he was outside the chamber and to his great
astonishment found it full of gold. The mendicant had kept his word and
made Friquet his heir.

"Ah! Mother Nanette!" cried Friquet, suffocating; "ah! Mother Nanette!"

He could say no more; but though he hadn't strength to speak he had
enough for action. He rushed headlong to the street, and like the Greek
from Marathon who fell in the square at Athens, with his laurel in his
hand, Friquet reached Councillor Broussel's threshold, and then fell
exhausted, scattering on the floor the louis disgorged by his leather
bag.

Mother Nanette began by picking up the louis; then she picked up
Friquet.

In the meantime the cortege returned to the Palais Royal.

"That Monsieur d'Artagnan is a very brave man, mother," said the young
king.

"Yes, my son; and he rendered very important services to your father.
Treat him kindly, therefore, in the future."

"Captain," said the young king to D'Artagnan, on descending from the
carriage, "the queen has charged me to invite you to dinner to-day--you
and your friend the Baron du Vallon."

That was a great honor for D'Artagnan and for Porthos. Porthos was
delighted; and yet during the entire repast he seemed to be preoccupied.

"What was the matter with you, baron?" D'Artagnan said to him as they
descended the staircase of the Palais Royal. "You seemed at dinner to be
anxious about something."

"I was trying," said Porthos, "to recall where I had seen that mendicant
whom I must have killed."

"And you couldn't remember?"

"No."

"Well, search, my friend, se