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The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years Later
The Vicomte De Bragelonne
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Twenty Years Later 52 at Prostate Health
perhaps the
cause of her disaster.
"Nevertheless, Raoul, you must go to Blois and you must make
your excuses and mine to Madame de Saint-Remy."
The youth looked pleased. He again took in his strong arms
the little girl, whose pretty golden head and smiling face
rested on his shoulder, and placed her gently in the
carriage; then jumping on his horse with the elegance of a
first-rate esquire, after bowing to Athos and DArtagnan, he
went off close by the door of the carriage, on somebody
inside of which his eyes were riveted.
14
The Castle of Bragelonne.
Whilst this scene was going on, DArtagnan remained with
open mouth and a confused gaze. Everything had turned out so
differently from what he expected that he was stupefied with
wonder.
Athos, who had been observing him and guessing his thoughts,
took his arm and led him into the garden.
"Whilst supper is being prepared," he said, smiling, "you
will not, my friend, be sorry to have the mystery which so
puzzles you cleared up."
"True, monsieur le comte," replied DArtagnan, who felt that
by degrees Athos was resuming that great influence which
aristocracy had over him.
Athos smiled.
"First and foremost, dear DArtagnan, we have no title such
as count here. When I call you `chevalier, it is in
presenting you to my guests, that they may know who you are.
But to you, DArtagnan, I am, I hope, still dear Athos, your
comrade, your friend. Do you intend to stand on ceremony
because you are less attached to me than you were?"
"Oh! God forbid!"
"Then let us be as we used to be; let us be open with each
other. You are surprised at what you see here?"
"Extremely."
"But above all things, I am a marvel to you?"
"I confess it."
"I am still young, am I not? Should you not have known me
again, in spite of my eight-and-forty years of age?"
"On the contrary, I do not find you the same person at all."
"I understand," cried Athos, with a gentle blush.
"Everything, DArtagnan, even folly, has its limit."
"Then your means, it appears, are improved; you have a
capital house -- your own, I presume? You have a park, and
horses, servants."
Athos smiled.
"Yes, I inherited this little property when I quitted the
army, as I told you. The park is twenty acres -- twenty,
comprising kitchen-gardens and a common. I have two horses,
-- I do not count my servants bobtailed nag. My sporting
dogs consist of two pointers, two harriers and two setters.
But then all this extravagance is not for myself," added
Athos, laughing.
"Yes, I see, for the young man Raoul," said DArtagnan.
"You guess aright, my friend; this youth is an orphan,
deserted by his mother, who left him in the house of a poor
country priest. I have brought him up. It is Raoul who has
worked in me the change you see; I was dried up like a
miserable tree, isolated, attached to nothing on earth; it
was only a deep affection that could make me take root again
and drag me back to life. This child has caused me to
recover what I had lost. I had no longer any wish to live
for myself, I have lived for him. I have corrected the vices
that I had; I have assumed the virtues that I had not.
Precept something, but example more. I may be mistaken, but
I believe that Raoul will be as accomplished a gentleman as
our degenerate age could display."
The remembrance of Milady recurred to DArtagnan.
"And you are happy?" he said to his friend.
"As happy as it is allowed to one of Gods creatures to be
on this earth; but say out all you think, DArtagnan, for
you have not yet done so."
"You are too bad, Athos; one can hide nothing from you,"
answered DArtagnan. "I wished to ask you if you ever feel
any emotions of terror resembling ---- "
"Remorse! I finish your phrase. Yes and no. I do not feel
remorse, because that woman, I profoundly hold, deserved her
punishment. Had she one redeeming trait? I doubt it. I do
not feel remorse, because had we allowed her to live she
would have persisted in her work of destruction. But I do
not mean, my friend that we were right in what we did.
Perhaps all blood demands some expiation. Hers had been
accomplished; it remains, possibly, for us to accomplish
ours."
"I have sometimes thought as you do, Athos."
"She had a son, that unhappy woman?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever heard of him?"
"Never."
"He must be about twenty-three years of age," said Athos,
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