es. This old
man in invincible despair, who wept, bent doubled without uttering a
word, presented the most touching spectacle that D'Artagnan, in a life
so filled with emotion, had ever met with.

The captain resumed standing in contemplation before that smiling dead
man, who seemed to have burnished his last thought, to give his best
friend, the man he had loved next to Raoul, a gracious welcome even
beyond life. And for reply to that exalted flattery of hospitality,
D'Artagnan went and kissed Athos fervently on the brow, and with his
trembling fingers closed his eyes. Then he seated himself by the pillow
without dread of that dead man, who had been so kind and affectionate
to him for five and thirty years. He was feeding his soul with the
remembrances the noble visage of the comte brought to his mind in
crowds--some blooming and charming as that smile--some dark, dismal, and
icy as that visage with its eyes now closed to all eternity.

All at once the bitter flood which mounted from minute to minute invaded
his heart, and swelled his breast almost to bursting. Incapable of
mastering his emotion, he arose, and tearing himself violently from the
chamber where he had just found dead him to whom he came to report the
news of the death of Porthos, he uttered sobs so heart-rending that the
servants, who seemed only to wait for an explosion of grief, answered to
it by their lugubrious clamors, and the dogs of the late comte by their
lamentable howlings. Grimaud was the only one who did not lift up his
voice. Even in the paroxysm of his grief he would not have dared to
profane the dead, or for the first time disturb the slumber of his
master. Had not Athos always bidden him be dumb?

At daybreak D'Artagnan, who had wandered about the lower hall, biting
his fingers to stifle his sighs--D'Artagnan went up once more; and
watching the moments when Grimaud turned his head towards him, he made
him a sign to come to him, which the faithful servant obeyed without
making more noise than a shadow. D'Artagnan went down again, followed
by Grimaud; and when he had gained the vestibule, taking the old man's
hands, "Grimaud," said he, "I have seen how the father died; now let me
know about the son."

Grimaud drew from his breast a large letter, upon the envelope of which
was traced the address of Athos. He recognized the writing of M. de
Beaufort, broke the seal, and began to read, while walking about in the
first steel-chill rays of da