Paris, nor the couriers of the whole world, can travel with your
servant; the courier from Blois will not be here these two hours, and he
rides well, I assure you, seeing that I only passed him on the thither
side of Orleans."

"My uncle Gaston," murmured Louis, pressing his hand to his brow, and
comprising in those three words all that his memory recalled of that
symbol of opposing sentiments.

"Eh! yes, sire, it is thus," said D'Artagnan, philosophically replying
to the royal thought, "it is thus the past flies away."

"That is true, monsieur, that is true; but there remains for us, thank
God! the future; and we will try to make it not too dark."

"I feel confidence in your majesty on that head," said D'Artagnan,
bowing, "and now--"

"You are right, monsieur; I had forgotten the hundred leagues you have
just ridden. Go, monsieur, take care of one of the best of soldiers, and
when you have reposed a little, come and place yourself at my disposal."

"Sire, absent or present, I am always yours."

D'Artagnan bowed and retired. Then, as if he had only come from
Fontainebleau, he quickly traversed the Louvre to rejoin Bragelonne.

Chapter II. A Lover and His Mistress.

Whilst the wax-lights were burning in the castle of Blois, around the
inanimate body of Gaston of Orleans, that last representative of the
past; whilst the _bourgeois_ of the city were thinking out his epitaph,
which was far from being a panegyric; whilst madame the dowager, no
longer remembering that in her young days she had loved that senseless
corpse to such a degree as to fly the paternal palace for his sake,
was making, within twenty paces of the funeral apartment, her little
calculations of interest and her little sacrifices of pride; other
interests and other prides were in agitation in all the parts of the
castle into which a living soul could penetrate. Neither the lugubrious
sounds of the bells, nor the voices of the chanters, nor the splendor
of the wax-lights through the windows, nor the preparations for the
funeral, had power to divert the attention of two persons, placed at a
window of the interior court--a window that we are acquainted with,
and which lighted a chamber forming part of what were called the little
apartments. For the rest, a joyous beam of the sun, for the sun appeared
to care little for the loss France had just suffered; a sunbeam, we say,
descended upon them, drawing perfumes from the neighboring flowers, and
an