“Kill me, if you will; you shall know nothing!”
D’Artagnan raised her by passing his arm round her waist; but as he felt by her weight she was on the point of fainting, he made haste to reassure her by protestations of devotion. These protestations were nothing for Madame Bonacieux, for such protestations may be made with the worst intentions in the world; but the voice was all. The young woman thought she recognized the sound of that voice. She opened her eyes, cast a quick glance upon the man who had terrified her so, and at once perceiving it was D’Artagnan, she uttered a cry of joy.
“Oh, it is you, it is you! Thank God, thank God!”
“Yes, it is I,” said D’Artagnan—“it is I, whom God has sent to watch over you.”
“Was it with that intention you followed me?”
“No,” said D’Artagnan—“no, I confess it; it was chance that threw me in your way. I saw a female knocking at the window of one of my friends.”
“One of your friends?” interrupted Madame Bonacieux.
“Without doubt; Aramis is one of my most intimate friends.”
“Aramis! Who is he?”
“Come, come, you won’t tell me you don’t know Aramis?”
“This is the first time I ever heard his name.”
“This is the first time, then, that you ever went to that house?”
“Certainly it is.”
“And you did not know that it was inhabited by a young man?”
“No.”
“My dear Madame Bonacieux, you are charming; but at the same time you are the most mysterious of women.”
“Do I lose much by that?”
“No; you are, on the contrary, adorable!”
“Give me your arm, then.”
“Most willingly. And now?”
“Now take me with you.”
“Where?”
“Where I am going.”
“But where are you going?”
“You will see, because you will leave me at the door.”
“Shall I wait for you?”
“That will be useless.”
“You will return alone, then?”
“Yes.”
“Well, madame, I perceive I must act in accordance with your wishes.”
D’Artagnan offered his arm to Madame Bonacieux, who took it, half laughing, half trembling, and both went up Rue la Harpe. When they reached there the young woman seemed to hesitate, as she had before done in the Rue Vaugirard. Nevertheless, by certain signs she appeared to recognize a door; and approaching that door,
“And now, sir,” she said, “it is here I have business. A thousand thanks for your honourable company, which has saved me from all the dangers to which, alone, I might have been exposed. But the moment has come for you to keep your word; I have reached the place of my destination.”
“If you could see my heart,” said D’Artagnan, “you would there read in it so much curiosity that you would pity me, and so much love that you would instantly satisfy my curiosity. We have nothing to fear from those who love us.”
“You speak very soon of love, sir!” she said, shaking her head.
“That is because love has come suddenly upon me, and for the first time, and because I am not twenty years old.”
“Sir,” said the young woman, supplicating him and clasping her hands together—“sir, in the name of Heaven, by a soldier’s honour, by the courtesy of a gentleman, depart! There! hear midnight striking; that is the hour at which I am expected.”
“Madame,” said the young man, bowing, “I can refuse nothing asked of me thus. Be satisfied; I will go.”
And as if he felt that only a violent effort would give him the strength to detach himself from the hand he held, he sprang away, running; while Madame Bonacieux knocked, as she had done at the shutter, three slow regular taps. Then, when he had gained the corner of the street, he looked around. The door had been opened and shut again; the mercer’s pretty wife had disappeared.
D’Artagnan pursued his way. He had given his word not to watch Madame Bonacieux, and if his life had depended upon the place to which she was going, or the person who should accompany her, D’Artagnan would still have returned home, since he had promised that he would do so. In five minutes he was in the Rue des Fossoyeurs.
“Poor Athos!” said he; “he will never guess what all this means. He must have fallen asleep waiting for me, or else he must have returned home, where he will have learned that a woman had been there. A woman at Athos’s house! After all,” continued D’Artagnan, “there was certainly one in Aramis’s house. All this is very strange; I should like to know how it will all end.”
“Badly, sir, badly!” replied a voice, which the young man recognized as Planchet’s; for, soliloquizing aloud, as very preoccupied people do, he had entered the alley, at the end of which were the stairs which led to his chamber.
“How badly? What do you mean by that, you stupid fellow?” asked D’Artagnan. “What has happened, then?”
“All sorts of misfortunes.”
“What?”
“In the first place, M. Athos is arrested.”
“Arrested! Athos arrested! What for?”
“He was found in your lodging; they took him for you.”
“And who arrested him?”
“The guard brought by the men in black whom you put to flight.”
“Why did he not tell them his name? Why did he not tell them he knew nothing about this affair?”
“He took care not to do so, sir. On the contrary, he came up to me, and said, ‘It is your master who needs his liberty at this moment, and not I, since he knows everything and I know nothing. They will believe he is arrested, and that will give him time. In three days I will tell them who I am, and they cannot fail to set me at liberty again.”
