“Yes, yes, Constance!—reunited!”

“Oh, how foolish she was to tell me you would not come! I hoped silently. I was not willing to flee. Oh, how rightly I have acted! How happy I am!”

At the word she, Athos, who had quietly seated himself, suddenly got up.

“She! Who?” asked D’Artagnan.

“Why, my companion. She who, out of friendship for me, wished to save me from my persecutors. She who, mistaking you for the cardinal’s guards, has just made her escape.”

“Your companion!” cried D’Artagnan, becoming paler than his mistress’s white veil. “What companion do you mean?”

“She whose carriage was at the gate; a woman who calls herself your friend, D’Artagnan; a woman to whom you have told everything.”

“But her name, her name!” cried D’Artagnan; “my God! don’t you know her name?”

“Yes, it was pronounced before me. Stop—but—it is strange—oh, my God! my head swims—I cannot see!”

“Help, friends, help! Her hands are like ice!” cried D’Artagnan; “she is ill! Great God, she is growing unconscious!”

While Porthos was calling for help at the top of his voice, Aramis ran to the table to get a glass of water. But he stopped at seeing the horrible alteration that had taken place in the face of Athos, who, standing before the table, his hair rising from his head, his eyes fixed in stupor, was looking at one of the glasses, and seemed a prey to the most horrible doubt.

“Oh,” said Athos, “oh no! It is impossible! God would not permit such a crime!”

Madame Bonacieux opened her eyes under D’Artagnan’s kisses.

“She revives!” cried the young man.

“Madame,” said Athos—“madame, in Heaven’s name, whose empty glass is this?”

“Mine, sir,” said the young woman, in a dying voice.

“But who poured out for you the wine that was in this glass?”

“she.”

“But who is she?”

“Oh, I remember,” said Madame Bonacieux; “the Countess Winter.”

The four friends uttered one and the same cry, but the cry of Athos dominated over all the rest.

At that moment Madame Bonacieux’s face grew livid, a stifled agony overcame her, and she sank panting into the arms of Porthos and Aramis.

D’Artagnan seized Athos’s hand with anguish difficult to describe.

“What! do you believe—”