“In ’43,” he said, “just before the death of the late cardinal, I received a letter from Athos.  Where was I then?  Let me see.  Oh! at the siege of Besancon I was in the trenches.  He told me —­ let me think —­ what was it?  That he was living on a small estate —­ but where?  I was just reading the name of the place when the wind blew my letter away, I suppose to the Spaniards; there’s no use in thinking any more about Athos.  Let me see:  with regard to Porthos, I received a letter from him, too.  He invited me to a hunting party on his property in the month of September, 1646.  Unluckily, as I was then in Bearn, on account of my father’s death, the letter followed me there.  I had left Bearn when it arrived and I never received it until the month of April, 1647; and as the invitation was for September, 1646, I couldn’t accept it.  Let me look for this letter; it must be with my title deeds.”

D’Artagnan opened an old casket which stood in a corner of the room, and which was full of parchments referring to an estate during a period of two hundred years lost to his family.  He uttered an exclamation of delight, for the large handwriting of Porthos was discernible, and underneath some lines traced by his worthy spouse.

D’Artagnan eagerly searched for the heading of this letter; it was dated from the Chateau du Vallon.

Porthos had forgotten that any other address was necessary; in his pride he fancied that every one must know the Chateau du Vallon.

“Devil take the vain fellow,” said D’Artagnan.  “However, I had better find him out first, since he can’t want money.  Athos must have become an idiot by this time from drinking.  Aramis must have worn himself to a shadow of his former self by constant genuflexion.”

He cast his eyes again on the letter.  There was a postscript: 

“I write by the same courier to our worthy friend Aramis in his convent.”

“In his convent!  What convent?  There are about two hundred in Paris and three thousand in France; and then, perhaps, on entering the convent he changed his name.  Ah! if I were but learned in theology I should recollect what it was he used to dispute about with the curate of Montdidier and the superior of the Jesuits, when we were at Crevecoeur; I should know what doctrine he leans to and I should glean from that what saint he has adopted as his patron.

“Well, suppose I go back to the cardinal and ask him for a passport into all the convents one can find, even into the nunneries?  It would be a curious idea, and maybe I should find my friend under the name of Achilles.  But, no!  I should lose myself in the cardinal’s opinion.  Great people only thank you for doing the impossible; what’s possible, they say, they can effect themselves, and they are right.  But let us wait a little and reflect.  I received a letter from him, the dear fellow, in which he even asked me for some small service, which, in fact, I rendered him.  Yes, yes; but now what did I do with that letter?”