olatry. Her heart is inaccessible to any other feeling. You might
continue to live near her, and would be her best friend."

"Ah!" exclaimed Raoul, with a passionate burst of repugnance at such a
hideous hope.

"Will you do so?"

"It would be base."

"That is a very absurd word, which would lead me to think slightly of
your understanding. Please to understand, Raoul, that it is never base
to do that which is imposed upon us by a superior force. If your heart
says to you, 'Go there, or die,' why go, Raoul. Was she base or brave,
she whom you loved, in preferring the king to you, the king whom her
heart commanded her imperiously to prefer to you? No, she was the
bravest of women. Do, then, as she has done. Oblige yourself. Do you
know one thing of which I am sure, Raoul?"

"What is that?"

"Why, that by seeing her closely with the eyes of a jealous man--"

"Well?"

"Well! you would cease to love her."

"Then I am decided, my dear D'Artagnan."

"To set off to see her again?"

"No; to set off that I may _never_ see her again. I wish to love her
forever."

"Ha! I must confess," replied the musketeer, "that is a conclusion which
I was far from expecting."

"This is what I wish, my friend. You will see her again, and you will
give her a letter which, if you think proper, will explain to her, as to
yourself, what is passing in my heart. Read it; I drew it up last night.
Something told me I should see you to-day." He held the letter out, and
D'Artagnan read:

"MADEMOISELLE,--You are not wrong in my eyes in not loving me. You have
only been guilty of one fault towards me, that of having left me to
believe you loved me. This error will cost me my life. I pardon you,
but I cannot pardon myself. It is said that happy lovers are deaf to the
sorrows of rejected lovers. It will not be so with you, who did not love
me, save with anxiety. I am sure that if I had persisted in endeavoring
to change that friendship into love, you would have yielded out of a
fear of bringing about my death, or lessening the esteem I had for you.
It is much more delightful to me to die, knowing that _you_ are free
and satisfied. How much, then, will you love me, when you will no
longer fear either my presence or reproaches? You will love me, because,
however charming a new love may appear to you, God has not made me in
anything inferior to him you have chosen, and because my devotedness,
my sacrifice, and my painful end will assure me, in y