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for I haven’t quite drunk up the remains of the diamond, and Porthos and Aramis haven’t quite eaten them up. So we can just as well founder four horses as one. But consider, d’Artagnan,” he added, in a voice so grim that his accent gave the young man chills, “consider that Béthune is a town where the cardinal gave a rendezvous to a woman who brings misfortune with her wherever she goes. If you had only four men to deal with, d’Artagnan, I’d let you go alone; but you have this woman to deal with, so the four of us will go, and God grant that, with our four valets, there will be enough of us!”

“You frighten me, Athos,” cried d’Artagnan. “My God, what is it you fear?”

“Everything,” replied Athos.

D’Artagnan studied the faces of his companions, which, like that of Athos, bore the marks of deep anxiety, and they continued on their way as fast as their horses would carry them, without adding a single word.

On the evening of the twenty-fifth, they entered Arras, and just as d’Artagnan alighted at the Inn of the Golden Harrow to drink a glass of wine, a horseman came out of the posting yard, where he had just changed horses, and went galloping down the road to Paris. As he came through the main gate to the street, the wind blew open the cloak he was wrapped in, though it was the month of August, and tore at his hat, which the traveler grasped with his hand just as it was about to leave his head and pulled down sharply over his eyes.

D’Artagnan, who had his eyes fixed on this man, became extremely pale and dropped his glass.

“What’s wrong, Monsieur?” asked Planchet…“Oh, come running, gentlemen, my master is unwell!”

The three friends came running and found d’Artagnan, not unwell, but dashing for his horse. They stopped him in the gateway.

“Well, where the devil are you off to like this?” Athos cried to him.

“It’s he!” cried d’Artagnan, pale with wrath and sweat on his brow. “It’s he! Let me catch him!”

“But he who?” asked Athos.

“He, that man!”

“Which man?”

“That cursed man, my evil genius, whom I always see when I’m threatened with some misfortune: the one who accompanied the horrible woman when I met her for the first time, the one I was looking for when I provoked Athos, the one I saw the morning of the day when Mme Bonacieux was abducted! I mean the man from Meung! I saw him, it’s he! I recognized him when the wind blew his cloak open.”

“Devil take it!” said Athos, pondering.

“To horse, gentlemen, to horse! Let’s go after him and catch him!”

“My dear,” said Aramis, “consider that he is going in the opposite direction from the one in which we are going; that he has a fresh horse, while ours are tired; that consequently we will do in our horses without even having a chance of catching him. Let’s let the man go, d’Artagnan, and save the woman.”

“Hey, Monsieur!” cried a stable boy, running after the unknown man, “hey, Monsieur, this paper fell out of your hat! Hey, Monsieur!”

“My friend,” said d’Artagnan, “a half-pistole for that paper!”

“By heaven, Monsieur, with great pleasure! Here it is!”

The stable boy, delighted with the good day’s wages he had made, went back into the hotel courtyard. D’Artagnan unfolded the paper.

“Well?” asked his friends, gathering around him.

“Only one word!” said d’Artagnan.

“Yes,” said Aramis, “but it’s the name of a town or a village.”

“‘Armentiers,’” read Porthos. “Armentiers—never heard of it!”

“And this name of a town or a village is written in her hand!” cried Athos.

“Well, well, let’s take good care of this paper,” said d’Artagnan. “Maybe I haven’t wasted my last pistole. To horse, my friends, to horse!”

And the four companions set off at a gallop on the road to Béthune.

LXI

THE CONVENT OF THE CARMELITES IN BÉTHUNE

Great criminals bear a sort of predestination with them that enables them to surmount all obstacles and to escape all dangers until that moment which Providence, grown weary, has marked as the shoal on which their impious fortune will founder.

It was so with Milady. She passed between the cruisers of two nations and arrived at Boulogne without mishap.