The Three Musketeers. Alexandre Dumas

late; they will be gone.”

      “Never mind; there is no harm in trying!”

      “Take ten of my guards, and ransack the two houses.”

      “It shall be done, my lord!”

      So saying, Rochefort rushed from the room.

      When the cardinal was left alone, he remained a moment in thought, and then rang a third time.

      The officer who had come before appeared again.

      “Bring in the prisoner,” said the cardinal.

      “Master Bonancieux was again brought in, and, at a sign from the cardinal, the officer withdrew.

      “You have deceived me,” said the cardinal, with great severity.

      “I!” cried Bonancieux; “I deceive your eminence!”

      “When your wife went to the Rue Vaugirard, and the Rue de la Harpe, she did not go to linen-drapers.”

      “Good God! To whom did she go, then?”

      “She went to see the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and the Duke of Buckingham.”

      “Yes!” said Bonancieux, with a flash of recollection; “yes, exactly so; your eminence is right. I often told my wife that it was astonishing that linen-drapers should live in such houses; in houses which had no signs; and every time I said so, my wife began to laugh. Ah! my lord!” he continued, throwing himself at the feet of his eminence, “it is plain that you are the cardinal, the great cardinal—the man of genius, whom all the world reveres!”

      The cardinal, small as was the triumph to be achieved over a being so vulgar as was Bonancieux, did not the less enjoy it for a moment. Then, as if a new idea struck him, he smiled, and, stretching out his hand to the mercer—

      “Rise, my friend,” said he, “you are a worthy fellow.”

      “The cardinal has taken my hand! I have touched the hand of the great man!” exclaimed Bonancieux; “the great man has called me his friend!”

      “Yes, my friend, yes,” said the cardinal, in that paternal tone which he was sometimes able to assume, but which only deceived those who did not know him; “and as you have been unjustly suspected, we must make you some amends. Here, take this bag of a hundred pistoles, and forgive me.”

      “I forgive you, my lord!” said Bonancieux, hesitating to take the bag, from a fear that this supposed gift was only a jest. “But you were quite at liberty to have me arrested; you are quite at liberty to send me to the torture; you are quite at liberty to hang me; you are the master, and I should not have the smallest word to say against it. Forgive you, my lord! But you cannot mean that!”

      “Ah! my dear M. Bonancieux, you are very generous; I see it, and I thank you. But you must take this bag, and then you will go away not very discontented—will you?”

      “I go away perfectly enchanted, my lord!”

      “Adieu, then; or, rather, au revoir hair; for I hope that we shall see each other again.”

      “As often as my lord may please; I am at your eminence’s command.”

      “It shall be often, depend upon it; for I have found your conversation quite charming.”

      “Oh! my lord!”

      “Farewell, till our next meeting, M. Bonancieux—till our next meeting.”