At length Athos went to bed, apparently, for the noise ceased.

Silence and fatigue together overcame D’Artagnan and sleep overtook him also.  He was not, however, a good sleeper.  Scarcely had dawn gilded his window curtains when he sprang out of bed and opened the windows.  Somebody, he perceived, was in the courtyard, moving stealthily.  True to his custom of never passing anything over that it was within his power to know, D’Artagnan looked out of the window and perceived the close red coat and brown hair of Raoul.

The young man was opening the door of the stable.  He then, with noiseless haste, took out the horse that he had ridden on the previous evening, saddled and bridled it himself and led the animal into the alley to the right of the kitchen-garden, opened a side door which conducted him to a bridle road, shut it after him, and D’Artagnan saw him pass by like a dart, bending, as he went, beneath the pendent flowery branches of maple and acacia.  The road, as D’Artagnan had observed, was the way to Blois.

“So!” thought the Gascon “here’s a young blade who has already his love affair, who doesn’t at all agree with Athos in his hatred to the fair sex.  He’s not going to hunt, for he has neither dogs nor arms; he’s not going on a message, for he goes secretly.  Why does he go in secret?  Is he afraid of me or of his father? for I am sure the count is his father.  By Jove!  I shall know about that soon, for I shall soon speak out to Athos.”

Day was now advanced; all the noises that had ceased the night before reawakened, one after the other.  The bird on the branch, the dog in his kennel, the sheep in the field, the boats moored in the Loire, even, became alive and vocal.  The latter, leaving the shore, abandoned themselves gaily to the current.  The Gascon gave a last twirl to his mustache, a last turn to his hair, brushed, from habit, the brim of his hat with the sleeve of his doublet, and went downstairs.  Scarcely had he descended the last step of the threshold when he saw Athos bent down toward the ground, as if he were looking for a crown-piece in the dust.

“Good-morning, my dear host,” cried D’Artagnan.

“Good-day to you; have you slept well?”

“Excellently, Athos, but what are you looking for?  You are perhaps a tulip fancier?”

“My dear friend, if I am, you must not laugh at me for being so.  In the country people alter; one gets to like, without knowing it, all those beautiful objects that God causes to spring from the earth, which are despised in cities.  I was looking anxiously for some iris roots I planted here, close to this reservoir, and which some one has trampled upon this morning.  These gardeners are the most careless people in the world; in bringing the horse out to the water they’ve allowed him to walk over the border.”

D’Artagnan began to smile.

“Ah! you think so, do you?”

And he took his friend along the alley, where a number of tracks like those which had trampled down the flowerbeds, were visible.