The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [308]
“Do you think—?” he paused, choking. “Do you think—?” and his voice was drowned in a sob.
“I think the very worst!” Athos answered, biting his lips.
“D’Artagnan, D’Artagnan!” Madame Bonacieux moaned. “Don’t leave me, my lover. Where are you? You see I am dying.”
Releasing Athos, whose hand he had held clenched in his hands, D’Artagnan hastened to her side. Her beautiful face was distorted in agony, her bright eyes were now fixed in a glassy stare, her lovely body trembled convulsively, the sweat rolled off her brow.
“For God’s sake, get some help, Porthos, Aramis. What are you waiting for?”
“It is quite useless,” Athos said bitterly. “For the poison she pours, there is no antidote.”
“Help me, my dear friends,” Madame Bonacieux pleaded. “I am in such pain!”
Then, gathering all her strength, she took the young man’s head between her two hands, looked at him for a moment as though to concentrate her entire soul in this gaze of farewell, and with a sobbing cry, pressed her lips on his.
“Constance, Constance!”
A sigh escaped her, D’Artagnan felt her breath grazing his lips and slowly she sank back. How good, how chaste, how loving she had been, he thought, and now it was a dead woman he held in his embrace. With a cry, he fell beside her, pale and icy as herself.
Porthos was weeping unashamedly, Athos shook his fist toward Heaven, Aramis made the sign of the Cross.
Suddenly a man appeared in the doorway, panting and almost as upset as those in the room. Looking around him he noticed Madame Bonacieux dead and D’Artagnan in a faint. At a glance he realized that he was witnessing the moment of general stupor which follows upon great catastrophes.
“I was not mistaken,” he said, “this is Monsieur d’Artagnan, and you three are his friends, Messieurs Athos, Porthos and Aramis.”
The musketeers looked up in surprise at hearing their names. Each sought to recall the stranger who seemed not unfamiliar yet they could not quite place him.
“Like yourselves, gentlemen, I am in search of a woman—” he gave a bitter smile, “—a woman who must have passed this way, for I see a corpse here.”
The friends remained silent. Surely they had met this man, but where? His voice as well as his face recalled someone they had encountered, but in what circumstances?
“Gentlemen,” the stranger continued, “since you do not recognize a man whose life you have saved twice, I must need introduce myself. I am Lord Winter, brother-in-law of that woman.”
The three friends cried out in surprise. Athos rose and held out his hand:
“Be welcome, Milord,” he said courteously. “You are one of us.”
“I left Portsmouth five hours after she did,” Lord Winter explained. “I reached Boulogne three hours after her. I missed her by twenty minutes at Saint-Omer. Finally at Lilliers I lost all trace of her. I was on her trail, searching haphazard and inquiring of everybody who passed. Suddenly I saw you gallop past and I recognized Monsieur d’Artagnan. I shouted to you but you did not reply. I tried to overtake you but my horse could not keep up with yours. So in spite of all your diligence you arrived too late.”
“As you see,” Athos said, pointing to Madame Bonacieux, while Porthos and Aramis attempted to revive the Gascon.
“Are they both dead?” Lord Winter inquired sternly.
“No,” Athos assured him. “Fortunately Monsieur d’Artagnan has only fainted.” And at that moment, as though to reassure the stranger, D’Artagnan opened his eyes, tore himself away from Porthos and Aramis and flung himself like a madman on the body of his mistress. Athos rose, walked over to his friend with slow and solemn step, tenderly embraced him and, as D’Artagnan broke into sobs, he said in his mellow, persuasive voice:
“Friend, be a man! Women weep for the dead; men avenge them!”
“Ay, we must avenge her. Lead the way, Athos, I am ready to follow you!”
Athos profited by this moment of strength inspired in his friend by hope of vengeance to