e
company was then heard departing; then the door of the closet in which
d'Artagnan was, was opened, and Mme. Bonacieux entered.

"You at last?" cried d'Artagnan.

"Silence!" said the young woman, placing her hand upon his lips;
"silence, and go the same way you came!"

"But where and when shall I see you again?" cried d'Artagnan.

"A note which you will find at home will tell you. Begone, begone!"

At these words she opened the door of the corridor, and pushed
d'Artagnan out of the room. D'Artagnan obeyed like a child, without the
least resistance or objection, which proved that he was really in love.

23 THE RENDEZVOUS

D'Artagnan ran home immediately, and although it was three o'clock in
the morning and he had some of the worst quarters of Paris to traverse,
he met with no misadventure. Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers
have a protecting deity.

He found the door of his passage open, sprang up the stairs and knocked
softly in a manner agreed upon between him and his lackey. Planchet*,
whom he had sent home two hours before from the Hotel de Ville, telling
him to sit up for him, opened the door for him.

*The reader may ask, "How came Planchet here?" when he was left "stiff
as a rush" in London. In the intervening time Buckingham perhaps sent
him to Paris, as he did the horses.

"Has anyone brought a letter for me?" asked d'Artagnan, eagerly.

"No one has BROUGHT a letter, monsieur," replied Planchet; "but one has
come of itself."

"What do you mean, blockhead?"

"I mean to say that when I came in, although I had the key of your
apartment in my pocket, and that key had never quit me, I found a letter
on the green table cover in your bedroom."

"And where is that letter?"

"I left it where I found it, monsieur. It is not natural for letters
to enter people's houses in this manner. If the window had been open or
even ajar, I should think nothing of it; but, no--all was hermetically
sealed. Beware, monsieur; there is certainly some magic underneath."

Meanwhile, the young man had darted in to his chamber, and opened the
letter. It was from Mme. Bonacieux, and was expressed in these terms:

"There are many thanks to be offered to you, and to be transmitted to
you. Be this evening about ten o'clock at St. Cloud, in front of the
pavilion which stands at the corner of the house of M. d'Estrees.--C.B."

While reading this letter, d'Artagnan felt his heart dilated and
compressed by that delic