The Three Musketeers

Luxembourg.
    On being left alone with Mme. Bonacieux, d'Artagnan turned toward her; the poor woman reclined where she had been left, half-fainting upon an armchair. D'Artagnan examined her with a rapid glance.
    She was a charming woman of twenty-five or twenty-six years, with dark hair, blue eyes, and a nose slightly turned up, admirable teeth, and a complexion marbled with rose and opal. There, however, ended the signs which might have confounded her with a lady of rank. The hands were white, but without delicacy; the feet did not bespeak the woman of quality. Happily, d'Artagnan was not yet acquainted with such niceties.
    While d'Artagnan was examining Mme. Bonacieux, and was, as we have said, close to her, he saw on the ground a fine cambric handkerchief, which he picked up, as was his habit, and at the corner of which he recognized the same cipher he had seen on the handkerchief which had nearly caused him and Aramis to cut each other's throat.
    From that time, d'Artagnan had been cautious with respect to handkerchiefs with arms on them, and he therefore placed in the pocket of Mme. Bonacieux the one he had just picked up.
    At that moment Mme. Bonacieux recovered her senses. She opened her eyes, looked around her with terror, saw that the apartment was empty and that she was alone with her liberator. She extended her hands to him with a smile. Mme. Bonacieux had the sweetest smile in the world.
    "Ah, monsieur!" said she, "you have saved me; permit me to thank you."
    "Madame," said d'Artagnan, "I have only done what every gentleman would have done in my place; you owe me no thanks."
    "Oh, yes, monsieur, oh, yes; and I hope to prove to you that you have not served an ingrate. But what could these men, whom I at first took for robbers, want with me, and why is Monsieur Bonacieux not here?"
    "Madame, those men were more dangerous than any robbers could have been, for they are the agents of the cardinal; and as to your husband, Monsieur Bonacieux, he is not here because he was yesterday evening conducted to the Bastille."
    "My husband in the Bastille!" cried Mme. Bonacieux. "Oh, my God! What has he done? Poor dear man, he is innocence itself!"
    And something like a faint smile lighted the still-terrified features of the young woman.
    "What has he done, madame?" said d'Artagnan. "I believe that his only crime is to have at the same time the good fortune and the misfortune to be your husband."
    "But, monsieur, you know then—"
    "I know that you have been abducted, madame."
    "And by whom? Do you know him? Oh, if you know him, tell me!"
    "By a man of from forty to forty-five years, with black hair, a dark complexion, and a scar on his left temple."
    "That is he, that is he; but his name?"
    "Ah, his name? I do not know that."
    "And did my husband know I had been carried off?"
    "He was informed of it by a letter, written to him by the abductor himself."
    "And does he suspect," said Mme. Bonacieux, with some embarrassment, "the cause of this event?"
    "He attributed it, I believe, to a political cause."
    "I doubted from the first; and now I think entirely as he does. Then my dear Monsieur Bonacieux has not suspected me a single instant?"
    "So far from it, madame, he was too proud of your prudence, and above all, of your love."
    A second smile, almost imperceptible, stole over the rosy lips of the pretty young woman.
    "But," continued d'Artagnan, "how did you escape?"
    "I took advantage of a moment when they left me alone; and as I had known since morning the reason of my abduction, with the help of the sheets I let myself down from the window. Then, as I believed my husband would be at home, I hastened hither."
    "To place yourself under his protection?"
    "Oh, no, poor dear man! I knew very well that he was incapable of defending me; but as he could serve us in other ways, I wished to inform him."
    "Of what?"
    "Oh, that is not my secret; I must not, therefore, tell you."
    "Besides," said d'Artagnan, "pardon me, madame, if, guardsman as I am, I remind you of prudence—besides, I believe we are not here in a very proper place for imparting confidences. The men I have put to flight will return reinforced; if they find us here, we are lost. I have sent for three of my friends, but who knows whether they were at home?"
    "Yes, yes! You are right," cried the affrighted Mme. Bonacieux; "let us fly! Let us save ourselves."
    At these words she passed her arm under that of d'Artagnan, and urged him forward eagerly.
    "But whither shall