to me that I have a right to repeat the question I have
already asked, 'Who _are_ you?'"

"Do you remember, fifteen or eighteen years ago, seeing at Noisy-le-Sec
a cavalier, accompanied by a lady in black silk, with flame-colored
ribbons in her hair?"

"Yes," said the young man; "I once asked the name of this cavalier, and
they told me that he called himself the Abbe d'Herblay. I was astonished
that the abbe had so warlike an air, and they replied that there was
nothing singular in that, seeing that he was one of Louis XIII.'s
musketeers."

"Well," said Aramis, "that musketeer and abbe, afterwards bishop of
Vannes, is your confessor now."

"I know it; I recognized you."

"Then, monseigneur, if you know that, I must further add a fact of which
you are ignorant--that if the king were to know this evening of the
presence of this musketeer, this abbe, this bishop, this confessor,
_here_--he, who has risked everything to visit you, to-morrow would
behold the steely glitter of the executioner's axe in a dungeon more
gloomy, more obscure than yours."

While listening to these words, delivered with emphasis, the young
man had raised himself on his couch, and was now gazing more and more
eagerly at Aramis.

The result of his scrutiny was that he appeared to derive some
confidence from it. "Yes," he murmured, "I remember perfectly. The
woman of whom you speak came once with you, and twice afterwards with
another." He hesitated.

"With another, who came to see you every month--is it not so,
monseigneur?"

"Yes."

"Do you know who this lady was?"

The light seemed ready to flash from the prisoner's eyes. "I am aware
that she was one of the ladies of the court," he said.

"You remember that lady well, do you not?"

"Oh, my recollection can hardly be very confused on this head," said the
young prisoner. "I saw that lady once with a gentleman about forty-five
years old. I saw her once with you, and with the lady dressed in black.
I have seen her twice since then with the same person. These four
people, with my master, and old Perronnette, my jailer, and the governor
of the prison, are the only persons with whom I have ever spoken, and,
indeed, almost the only persons I have ever seen."

"Then you were in prison?"

"If I am a prisoner here, then I was comparatively free, although in
a very narrow sense--a house I never quitted, a garden surrounded with
walls I could not climb, these constituted my residence, but y