ed."

The drink-deadened eye of Athos flashed out, but only for a moment; it
became as dull and vacant as before.

"That's true," said he, quietly, "for my part I have never loved."

"Acknowledge, then, you stony heart," said d'Artagnan, "that you are
wrong to be so hard upon us tender hearts."

"Tender hearts! Pierced hearts!" said Athos.

"What do you say?"

"I say that love is a lottery in which he who wins, wins death! You are
very fortunate to have lost, believe me, my dear d'Artagnan. And if I
have any counsel to give, it is, always lose!"

"She seemed to love me so!"

"She SEEMED, did she?"

"Oh, she DID love me!"

"You child, why, there is not a man who has not believed, as you do,
that his mistress loved him, and there lives not a man who has not been
deceived by his mistress."

"Except you, Athos, who never had one."

"That's true," said Athos, after a moment's silence, "that's true! I
never had one! Let us drink!"

"But then, philosopher that you are," said d'Artagnan, "instruct me,
support me. I stand in need of being taught and consoled."

"Consoled for what?"

"For my misfortune."

"Your misfortune is laughable," said Athos, shrugging his shoulders; "I
should like to know what you would say if I were to relate to you a real
tale of love!"

"Which has happened to you?"

"Or one of my friends, what matters?"

"Tell it, Athos, tell it."

"Better if I drink."

"Drink and relate, then."

"Not a bad idea!" said Athos, emptying and refilling his glass. "The two
things agree marvelously well."

"I am all attention," said d'Artagnan.

Athos collected himself, and in proportion as he did so, d'Artagnan
saw that he became pale. He was at that period of intoxication in which
vulgar drinkers fall on the floor and go to sleep. He kept himself
upright and dreamed, without sleeping. This somnambulism of drunkenness
had something frightful in it.

"You particularly wish it?" asked he.

"I pray for it," said d'Artagnan.

"Be it then as you desire. One of my friends--one of my friends,
please to observe, not myself," said Athos, interrupting himself with a
melancholy smile, "one of the counts of my province--that is to say, of
Berry--noble as a Dandolo or a Montmorency, at twenty-five years of
age fell in love with a girl of sixteen, beautiful as fancy can paint.
Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, not of the
woman, but of the poet. She did not please; she intoxic