The young man made his escape while she was still threatening him with an impotent gesture. At the moment she lost sight of him milady sank back fainting into her bedroom.
D’Artagnan was so completely upset that, without considering what would become of Kitty, he ran at full speed across half Paris, and did not stop till he reached Athos’s door.
Grimaud, his eyes swollen with sleep, came to open for him. D’Artagnan darted so violently into the room that he nearly knocked him over.
In spite of his habitual silence, the poor fellow this time found his tongue.
“Helloa, there!” cried he; “what do you want, you strumpet? What’s your business here, you hussy?”
“Grimaud,” said Athos, coming out of his apartment in a dressing-gown—“Grimaud, I believe you are permitting yourself to speak?”
“Ah, monsieur, but—”
“Silence!”
Grimaud contented himself with pointing at D’Artagnan.
Athos recognizing his comrade, and phlegmatic as he was, he burst into a laugh made quite excusable by the strange masquerade before his eyes—hood askew, petticoats falling over shoes, sleeves tucked up, and moustaches stiff with agitation.
“Don’t laugh, my friend!” cried D’Artagnan; “for Heaven’s sake, don’t laugh, for, on my soul, I tell you it’s no laughing matter!”
“Well?” said Athos.
“Well,” replied D’Artagnan, bending down to Athos’s ear, and lowering his voice, “milady is marked with a fleur-de-lis on her shoulder!”
“Ah!” cried the musketeer, as if he had received a ball in his heart.
“Come, now,” said D’Artagnan, “are you sure that the other is dead?”
“The other?” said Athos, in such a stifled voice that D’Artagnan scarcely heard him.
“Yes; she of whom you told me one day at Amiens.”
Athos uttered a groan and let his head sink into his hands.
“This one is a woman of from twenty-six to twenty-eight years of age.”
“Fair,” said Athos, “is she not?”
“Very.”
“Clear, blue eyes, of a strange brilliancy, with black eyelashes and eyebrows?”
“Yes.”
“Tall, well-made? She has lost a tooth, next to the eye-tooth on the left?”
“Yes.”
“The fleur-de-lis is small, rose-coloured, and somewhat faint from the coat of paste applied to it?”
“Yes.”
“But you say she is an Englishwoman?”
“She is called milady, but she may be French. Lord Winter is only her brother-in-law.”
“I will see her, D’Artagnan!” and he rang the bell.
Grimaud entered.
Athos made him a sign to go to D’Artagnan’s residence and bring back some clothes.
Grimaud replied by another sign that he understood perfectly, and set off.
“Come, now, my dear friend, but this does not help toward your equipment,” said Athos, “for if I am not mistaken, you have left all your clothes at milady’s, and she certainly will not have the politeness to return them to you. Fortunately, you have the sapphire.”
“The sapphire is yours, my dear Athos! Did you not tell me it was a family ring?”
“Yes; my father gave two thousand crowns for it, as he once told me. It formed part of the wedding present he made my mother, and it is magnificent. My mother gave it to me; and I, madman that I was, instead of keeping the ring as a holy relic, gave it to that wretched woman.”
“Then, my dear, take back your ring, to which, it is plain, you attach much value.”
“I take back the ring after it has passed through that infamous creature’s hands! Never! D’Artagnan, this ring is defiled.”
“Sell it, then.”
“Sell a jewel that came from my mother! I confess I should regard it as a sacrilege.”
“Pawn it, then. You can raise at least a thousand crowns on it. With such a sum you will be master of the situation. Then, when you get more money, you can redeem it, and have it back cleansed from its stains, for it will have passed through the usurer’s hands.”
Athos smiled.
“You are a capital comrade, my dear D’Artagnan,” said he. “Your never-failing cheerfulness lifts up poor souls in affliction. Well, let us pawn the ring, but on one condition.”
“What?”
“That five hundred crowns of it shall be yours and five hundred mine.”
“Well, then, I will take it,” said D’Artagnan.
At this moment Grimaud came in accompanied by Planchet, who was anxious about his master and curious to know what had happened to him, and so had taken advantage of the opportunity and brought the clothes himself. D’Artagnan dressed; Athos did the same. Then when both were ready to go out, Athos imitated the action of a person taking aim, and Grimaud immediately took down his musketoon and got ready to follow his master.
They arrived without mishap at the Rue des Fossoyeurs. Bonacieux was at the door; he looked banteringly at D’Artagnan.
“Ah, my dear tenant!” said he. “Hurry up; you have a very pretty girl waiting at your room, and you know women don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“It’s Kitty,” said D’Artagnan to himself, and darted into the passage.
In fact, there on the landing that led to his chamber he found the poor girl all of a tremble and crouching against the door.
As soon as she saw him.
