“Yes, monseigneur, enemies against whom you owe me all your support, for I made them by serving your Eminence.”

“Who are they?” replied the duke.

“In the first place, there is a little intrigante named Bonacieux.”

“She is in the prison of Nantes.”

“That is to say, she was there,” replied Milady; “but the queen has obtained an order from the king by means of which she has been conveyed to a convent.”

“To a convent?” said the duke.

“Yes, to a convent.”

“And to which?”

“I don’t know; the secret has been well kept.”

“But I will know!”

“And your Eminence will tell me in what convent that woman is?”

“I can see nothing inconvenient in that,” said the cardinal.

“Well, now I have an enemy much more to be dreaded by me than this little Madame Bonacieux.”

“Who is that?”

“Her lover.”

“What is his name?”

“Oh, your Eminence knows him well,” cried Milady, carried away by her anger.  “He is the evil genius of both of us.  It is he who in an encounter with your Eminence’s Guards decided the victory in favor of the king’s Musketeers; it is he who gave three desperate wounds to de Wardes, your emissary, and who caused the affair of the diamond studs to fail; it is he who, knowing it was I who had Madame Bonacieux carried off, has sworn my death.”

“Ah, ah!” said the cardinal, “I know of whom you speak.”

“I mean that miserable d’Artagnan.”

“He is a bold fellow,” said the cardinal.

“And it is exactly because he is a bold fellow that he is the more to be feared.”

“I must have,” said the duke, “a proof of his connection with Buckingham.”

“A proof?” cried Milady; “I will have ten.”

“Well, then, it becomes the simplest thing in the world; get me that proof, and I will send him to the Bastille.”

“So far good, monseigneur; but afterwards?”

“When once in the Bastille, there is no afterward!” said the cardinal, in a low voice.  “Ah, pardieu!” continued he, “if it were as easy for me to get rid of my enemy as it is easy to get rid of yours, and if it were against such people you require impunity—­”

“Monseigneur,” replied Milady, “a fair exchange.  Life for life, man for man; give me one, I will give you the other.”

“I don’t know what you mean, nor do I even desire to know what you mean,” replied the cardinal; “but I wish to please you, and see nothing out of the way in giving you what you demand with respect to so infamous a creature—­the more so as you tell me this d’Artagnan is a libertine, a duelist, and a traitor.”

“An infamous scoundrel, monseigneur, a scoundrel!”

“Give me paper, a quill, and some ink, then,” said the cardinal.

“Here they are, monseigneur.”

There was a moment of silence, which proved that the cardinal was employed in seeking the terms in which he should write the note, or else in writing it.  Athos, who had not lost a word of the conversation, took his two companions by the hand, and led them to the other end of the room.