something fresh to console you with," said D'Artagnan, pushing him
towards the door.

Raoul, observing the perfect composure which marked every gesture of his
two friends, quitted the comte's room, carrying away with him nothing
but the individual feeling of his own particular distress.

"Thank Heaven," he said, "since that is the case, I need only think of
myself."

And wrapping himself up in his cloak, in order to conceal from the
passers-by in the streets his gloomy and sorrowful face, he quitted
them, for the purpose of returning to his own rooms, as he had promised
Porthos. The two friends watched the young man as he walked away with
a feeling of genuine disinterested pity; only each expressed it in a
different way.

"Poor Raoul!" said Athos, sighing deeply.

"Poor Raoul!" said D'Artagnan, shrugging his shoulders.

Chapter LX. Heu! Miser!

"Poor Raoul!" had said Athos. "Poor Raoul!" had said D'Artagnan: and,
in point of fact, to be pitied by both these men, Raoul must indeed have
been most unhappy. And therefore, when he found himself alone, face to
face, as it were, with his own troubles, leaving behind him the intrepid
friend and the indulgent father; when he recalled the avowal of the
king's affection, which had robbed him of Louise de la Valliere, whom
he loved so deeply, he felt his heart almost breaking, as indeed we all
have at least once in our lives, at the first illusion destroyed, the
first affection betrayed. "Oh!" he murmured, "all is over, then. Nothing
is now left me in this world. Nothing to look forward to, nothing to
hope for. Guiche has told me so, my father has told me so, M. d'Artagnan
has told me so. All life is but an idle dream. The future which I have
been hopelessly pursuing for the last ten years is a dream! the union of
hearts, a dream! a life of love and happiness, a dream! Poor fool that
I am," he continued, after a pause, "to dream away my existence aloud,
publicly, and in the face of others, friends and enemies--and for what
purpose, too? in order that my friends may be saddened by my troubles,
and my enemies may laugh at my sorrows. And so my unhappiness will soon
become a notorious disgrace, a public scandal; and who knows but that
to-morrow I may even be a public laughing-stock?"

And, despite the composure which he had promised his father and
D'Artagnan to observe, Raoul could not resist uttering a few words of
darkest menace. "And yet," he continued, "if my name wer