The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [57]
“Madame, these men were far more dangerous than any robbers could be; they were agents of the Cardinal. As for your husband, he isn’t here because he was picked up yesterday and taken to the Bastille.”
“My husband in the Bastille! Oh, my God! What has he done? Poor dear man, he is innocence personified.”
And something like a smile fluttered over her face.
“What has he done?” D’Artagnan echoed. “I think his only crime consists in having at once the good fortune and misfortune to be your husband.”
“But Monsieur, then you know—?”
“I know that you were abducted, Madame.”
“Who did it, Monsieur? Do you know? If you do know, then please, please tell me who it was!”
“You were abducted by a man forty or forty-five years old, with black hair, a swarthy complexion, and a scar on his left temple.”
“That’s right, that is the man. But his name, what is his name?”
“Alas, Madame, I do not know.”
“Was my husband aware that I had been abducted?”
“He received a letter telling him about it from the abductor himself.”
“Does he suspect the reason for my abduction?” Madame Bonacieux asked with some embarrassment.
“I believe he attributed it to political motives.”
“I myself did not think so at first but now I believe just as he does,” said the young woman. “Then my dear husband did not for a moment suspect me?”
“Never for a moment, Madame; he was too sure of your virtue and proud of the love you bear him.”
Again, an almost imperceptible smile stole over the roseate lips of the comely young woman.
“How did you escape?” D’Artagnan asked.
“I took advantage of a few minutes when they left me alone. As I had known since morning why I was abducted, I was determined to escape. I knotted my bedsheets together and let myself down through the window. Then, thinking my husband would be at home, I rushed here.”
“To put yourself under his protection?”
“No, no, poor dear man! I knew quite well that he was incapable of defending me. But he could serve us in another way, so I wished to talk to him.”
“About what?”
“I cannot tell you that because it is not my secret.”
“In any case, Madame (though I am a guardsman, let me recall you to prudence), in any case, this is scarcely a place for an exchange of confidences. The men I put to flight will soon return with reinforcements; if they find us here, we are ruined. To be sure, I sent word to three of my friends, but who knows whether they can be reached?”
“Yes, you are right! Let us fly, let us escape!” Considerably frightened, she slipped her arm through D’Artagnan’s and urged him forward.
“But where to?” D’Artagnan asked. “Where shall we fly to?”
“First let us get away from this house; afterwards we shall see.”
Without bothering to close the door behind them, the young couple walked quickly down the Rue des Fossoyeurs, turned into the Rue des Fossés Monsieur-le-Prince, and did not stop until they reached the Place Saint-Sulpice.
“Now what shall we do?” D’Artagnan asked. “To what address may I have the honor of accompanying you?”
“I must own I am at a loss how to answer,” she told him. “I intended to have my husband go to Monsieur de La Porte to ascertain what has been happening at the Louvre for the last three days and whether I could safely go back there.”
“Surely I can go to Monsieur de La Porte.”
“Perhaps so. Still there is one drawback. They know Monsieur Bonacieux at the Louvre so they would let him pass. They do not know you.”
“But surely there must be a concierge or doorman at some wicket of the Louvre who is devoted to you and thanks to a password—”
Madame Bonacieux looked earnestly at the young man:
“Suppose I give you this password, will you promise to forget it as soon as you have used it?”
“I promise on my word of honor and on my faith as a gentleman,” said D’Artagnan in accents too fervent to leave room for any doubt as to his sincerity.