“How can it be otherwise, my dear Bonacieux?” replied d’Artagnan; “trust me, I am fully grateful for such unparalleled conduct, and if, as I told you, I can be of any service to you—­”

“I believe you, monsieur, I believe you; and as I was about to say, by the word of Bonacieux, I have confidence in you.”

“Finish, then, what you were about to say.”

The citizen took a paper from his pocket, and presented it to d’Artagnan.

“A letter?” said the young man.

“Which I received this morning.”

D’Artagnan opened it, and as the day was beginning to decline, he approached the window to read it.  The citizen followed him.

“‘Do not seek your wife,’” read d’Artagnan; “’she will be restored to you when there is no longer occasion for her.  If you make a single step to find her you are lost.’

“That’s pretty positive,” continued d’Artagnan; “but after all, it is but a menace.”

“Yes; but that menace terrifies me.  I am not a fighting man at all, monsieur, and I am afraid of the Bastille.”

“Hum!” said d’Artagnan.  “I have no greater regard for the Bastille than you.  If it were nothing but a sword thrust, why then—­”

“I have counted upon you on this occasion, monsieur.”

“Yes?”

“Seeing you constantly surrounded by Musketeers of a very superb appearance, and knowing that these Musketeers belong to Monsieur de Treville, and were consequently enemies of the cardinal, I thought that you and your friends, while rendering justice to your poor queen, would be pleased to play his Eminence an ill turn.”

“Without doubt.”

“And then I have thought that considering three months’ lodging, about which I have said nothing—­”

“Yes, yes; you have already given me that reason, and I find it excellent.”

“Reckoning still further, that as long as you do me the honor to remain in my house I shall never speak to you about rent—­”

“Very kind!”

“And adding to this, if there be need of it, meaning to offer you fifty pistoles, if, against all probability, you should be short at the present moment.”

“Admirable!  You are rich then, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux?”

“I am comfortably off, monsieur, that’s all; I have scraped together some such thing as an income of two or three thousand crown in the haberdashery business, but more particularly in venturing some funds in the last voyage of the celebrated navigator Jean Moquet; so that you understand, monsieur—­But” cried the citizen.

“What!” demanded d’Artagnan.

“Whom do I see yonder?”

“Where?”

“In the street, facing your window, in the embrasure of that door—­a man wrapped in a cloak.”

“It is he!” cried d’Artagnan and the citizen at the same time, each having recognized his man.

“Ah, this time,” cried d’Artagnan, springing to his sword, “this time he will not escape me!”