‘Monsieur,’ said I, ’does it still displease you that I should frequent a certain house of La Rue Payenne?  And would you still cane me if I took it into my head to disobey you?  The officer looked at me with astonishment, and then said, ’What is your business with me, monsieur?  I do not know you.’  ‘I am,’ said I, ’the little abbe who reads lives of the saints, and translates Judith into verse.’  ’Ah, ah!  I recollect now,’ said the officer, in a jeering tone; ’well, what do you want with me?’ ’I want you to spare time to take a walk with me.’  ’Tomorrow morning, if you like, with the greatest pleasure.’  ’No, not tomorrow morning, if you please, but immediately.’  ‘If you absolutely insist.’  ’I do insist upon it.’  ‘Come, then.  Ladies,’ said the officer, ’do not disturb yourselves; allow me time just to kill this gentleman, and I will return and finish the last couplet.’

“We went out.  I took him to the Rue Payenne, to exactly the same spot where, a year before, at the very same hour, he had paid me the compliment I have related to you.  It was a superb moonlight night.  We immediately drew, and at the first pass I laid him stark dead.”

“The devil!” cried d’Artagnan.

“Now,” continued Aramis, “as the ladies did not see the singer come back, and as he was found in the Rue Payenne with a great sword wound through his body, it was supposed that I had accommodated him thus; and the matter created some scandal which obliged me to renounce the cassock for a time.  Athos, whose acquaintance I made about that period, and Porthos, who had in addition to my lessons taught me some effective tricks of fence, prevailed upon me to solicit the uniform of a Musketeer.  The king entertained great regard for my father, who had fallen at the siege of Arras, and the uniform was granted.  You may understand that the moment has come for me to re-enter the bosom of the Church.”

“And why today, rather than yesterday or tomorrow?  What has happened to you today, to raise all these melancholy ideas?”

“This wound, my dear d’Artagnan, has been a warning to me from heaven.”

“This wound?  Bah, it is now nearly healed, and I am sure it is not that which gives you the most pain.”

“What, then?” said Aramis, blushing.

“You have one at heart, Aramis, one deeper and more painful—­a wound made by a woman.”

The eye of Aramis kindled in spite of himself.

“Ah,” said he, dissembling his emotion under a feigned carelessness, “do not talk of such things, and suffer love pains?  VANITAS VANITATUM!  According to your idea, then, my brain is turned.  And for whom-for some grisette, some chambermaid with whom I have trifled in some garrison?  Fie!”

“Pardon, my dear Aramis, but I thought you carried your eyes higher.”

“Higher?  And who am I, to nourish such ambition?  A poor Musketeer, a beggar, an unknown-who hates slavery, and finds himself ill-placed in the world.”