Aramis rose. “Certainly,” said he; “I have nothing further to say to a man who mistrusts me as you do.”
“And I, Monsieur,” said the prisoner, in the same tone, “have nothing to say to a man who will not understand that a prisoner ought to be mistrustful of everybody.”
“Even of old friends?” said Aramis. “Oh, Monseigneur, you are too cautious!”
“Of my old friends?- you one of my old friends,- you?”
“Do you no longer remember,” said Aramis, “that you once saw in the village where your early years were spent-”
“Do you know the name of the village?” asked the prisoner.
“Noisy-le-Sec, Monseigneur,” answered Aramis, firmly.
“Go on!” said the young man, without expression of assent or denial on his countenance.
“Stay, Monseigneur!” said Aramis; “if you are positively resolved to carry on this game, let us break off. I am here to tell you many things, ‘t is true; but you must allow me to see that, on your side, you have a desire to know them. Before revealing the important matters I conceal, be assured that I am in need of some encouragement, if not candor; a little sympathy, if not confidence. But you keep yourself intrenched in a pretended ignorance which paralyzes me. Oh, not for the reason you think; for ignorant as you may be, or indifferent as you feign to be, you are none the less what you are, Monseigneur, and there is nothing- nothing, mark me!- which can cause you not to be so.”
“I promise you,” replied the prisoner, “to hear you without impatience. Only it appears to me that I have a right to repeat the question I have already asked, ‘who are you?'”
“Do you remember, fifteen or eighteen years ago, seeing at Noisy-le-Sec a cavalier, accompanied by a lady plainly dressed in black silk, with flame-colored ribbons in her hair?”
“Yes,” said the young man; “I once asked the name of this cavalier, and was told that he called himself the Abbe d’Herblay. I was astonished that the abbe had so warlike an air, and was told that there was nothing singular in that, seeing that he was one of Louis XIII’s musketeers.”
“Well,” said Aramis, “that musketeer of other times, that abbe afterwards, then bishop of Vannes, is to-day your confessor.”
“I know it; I recognized you.”
“Then, Monseigneur, if you know that, I must add a fact of which you are ignorant,- that if the King were to know this evening of the presence here of this musketeer, this abbe, this bishop, this confessor, he who has risked everything to visit you would to-morrow see glitter the executioner’s axe at the bottom of a dungeon more gloomy and more obscure than yours.”
While hearing these words, delivered with emphasis, the young man had raised himself on his couch and gazed more and more eagerly at Aramis. The result of this scrutiny was that he appeared to derive some confidence from it. “Yes,” he murmured, “I remember perfectly. The woman of whom you speak came once with you, and twice afterwards with the woman-” He hesitated.
“With another woman who came to see you every month,- is it not so, Monseigneur?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know who this lady was?”
The light seemed ready to flash from the prisoner’s eyes. “I am aware that she was a lady of the court,” he said.
“You remember that lady well, do you not?”
“Oh, my recollection can hardly be very confused on this head!” said the young prisoner. “I saw that lady once with a gentleman about forty-five years old. I saw her once with you, and with the lady dressed in black with flame-colored ribbons. I have seen her twice since with the same person. These four persons, with my tutor and old Perronnette, my jailer and the governor of the prison, are the only persons with whom I have ever spoken, and, indeed, almost the only persons I have ever seen.”
“Then, you were in prison?”
“If I am a prisoner here, there I was comparatively free, although in a very narrow sense. A house which I never quitted, a garden surrounded with walls I could not clear,- these constituted my residence; but you know it, as you have been there. In a word, being accustomed to live within these bounds, I never cared to leave them. And so you will understand, Monsieur, that not having seen anything of the world, I can desire nothing; and therefore, if you relate anything, you will be obliged to explain everything to me.”