“True,” cried the gentleman. “Begone then your way, and I will go mine.” And bowing to the lady, he sprang into his saddle, her coachman at the same time applying his whip vigorously to his horses. The two interlocutors thus separated, taking opposite directions, at full gallop.

“Base coward! false nobleman!” cried D’Artagnan, springing forward. But his wound had rendered him too weak to support such an exertion.

“He is a coward indeed,” grumbled the host, drawing near to D’Artagnan, and endeavouring by this little flattery to make up matters with the young man, as the heron of the fable did with the snail he had despised the evening before.

“Yes, a base coward,” murmured D’Artagnan; “but she—she was very beautiful.”

“What she?” demanded the host.

“Milady,” faltered D’Artagnan, and fainted the second time.

On the following morning, at five o’clock, D’Artagnan arose, and descending to the kitchen without help, asked, among other ingredients the list of which has not come down to us, for some oil, some wine, and some rosemary, and with his mother’s recipe in his hand, composed a balsam with which he anointed his numerous wounds, replacing his bandages himself, and positively refusing the assistance of any doctor. Thanks, no doubt, to the efficacy of the gypsy’s balsam, and perhaps, also, thanks to the absence of any doctor, D’Artagnan walked about that same evening, and was almost cured by the morrow.

But when the time of settlement came, D’Artagnan found nothing in his pocket but his little worn velvet purse with the eleven crowns it contained; as to the letter addressed to M. de Tréville, it had disappeared.

“My letter of recommendation!” cried D’Artagnan; “my letter of recommendation! or, by God’s blood, I will spit you all like so many ortolans!”

“Does the letter contain anything valuable?” demanded the host, after a few minutes of useless investigation.

“Zounds! I think it does, indeed,” cried the Gascon, who reckoned upon this letter for making his way at court; “it contained my fortune!”

A ray of light all at once broke upon the mind of the host, who was uttering maledictions upon finding nothing.

“That letter is not lost!” cried he.

“What!” said D’Artagnan.

“No; it has been stolen from you.”

“Stolen! by whom?”

“By the gentleman who was here yesterday. He came down into the kitchen, where your doublet was. He remained there some time alone. I would lay a wager he has stolen it.”

“Do you think so?” answered D’Artagnan.

“I tell you I am sure of it,” continued the host. “When I informed him that your lordship was the protégé of M. de Tréville, and that you even had a letter for that illustrious nobleman, he appeared to be very much disturbed, and asked me where that letter was, and immediately came down into the kitchen, where he knew your doublet was.”