The neighbors who had opened their windows, with the coolness peculiar to the inhabitants of Paris in these times of perpetual riots and disturbances, closed them again as soon as they saw the four men in black flee—­their instinct telling them that for the time all was over.  Besides, it began to grow late, and then, as today, people went to bed early in the quarter of the 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.”