“Besides?”
“I was going to say, that the designs of Providence do not stop on such a fair road. Every scheme of this calibre is completed by its results, like a geometrical calculation. The King in prison will not be for you the cause of embarrassment that you have been for the King enthroned. His soul is naturally proud and impatient; it is, moreover, disarmed and enfeebled by being accustomed to honors, and by the license of supreme power. God, who has willed that the concluding step in the geometrical calculation I have had the honor of describing to your royal Highness should be your accession to the throne and the destruction of him who is hurtful to you, has also determined that the conquered one shall soon end both his own and your sufferings. Therefore his soul and body have been adapted for but a brief agony. Put into prison as a private individual, left alone with your doubts, deprived of everything, you have met all with the force of uninterrupted custom. But your brother, a captive, forgotten, and in bonds, will not long endure the calamity, and Heaven will resume his soul at the appointed time,- that is to say, soon.”
At this point in Aramis’s gloomy analysis a bird of night uttered from the depths of the forest that prolonged and plaintive cry which makes every creature tremble.
“I will exile the deposed King,” said Philippe, shuddering; “’twill be more humane.”
“The King’s good pleasure will decide the point,” said Aramis. “But has the problem been well put? Have I brought out the solution according to the wishes or the foresight of your royal Highness?”
“Yes, Monsieur, yes; you have forgotten nothing,- except, indeed, two things.”
“The first?”
“Let us speak of it at once, with the same frankness we have already used. Let us speak of the causes which may bring about the ruin of all the hopes we have conceived. Let us speak of the dangers we incur.”
“They would be immense, infinite, terrific, insurmountable, if, as I have said, all things did not concur in rendering them absolutely of no account. There is no danger either for you or for me, if the constancy and intrepidity of your royal Highness are equal to that perfection of resemblance to your brother which Nature has bestowed upon you. I repeat it, there are no dangers,- only obstacles; a word, indeed, which I find in all languages, but have always ill understood, and, were I King, would have obliterated as useless and absurd.”
“Yes, indeed, Monsieur; there is a very serious obstacle, an insurmountable danger, which you are forgetting.”
“Ah!” said Aramis.
“There is conscience, which cries aloud; remorse, which lacerates.”
“Oh! that is true,” said the bishop; “there is a weakness of heart of which you remind me. Oh! you are right; that, indeed, is an immense obstacle. The horse afraid of the ditch leaps into the middle of it, and is killed! The man who trembling crosses his sword with that of another leaves loopholes by which death enters!”
“Have you a brother?” said the young man to Aramis.
“I am alone in the world,” said the latter, with a hard, dry voice.
“But surely there is some one in the world whom you love?” added Philippe.
“No one!- Yes, I love you.”
The young man sank into so profound a silence that the sound of his breathing seemed to Aramis like a roaring tumult. “Monseigneur,” he resumed, “I have not said all I had to say to your royal Highness; I have not offered you all the salutary counsels and useful resources which I have at my disposal. It is useless to flash bright visions before the eyes of one who loves darkness; useless, too, is it to let the grand roar of the cannon sound in the ears of one who loves repose and the quiet of the country. Monseigneur, I have your happiness spread out before me in my thoughts. I will let it fall from my lips; take it up carefully for yourself, who look with such tender regard upon the bright heavens, the verdant meadows, the pure air. I know a country full of delights, an unknown Paradise, a corner of the world where alone, unfettered, and unknown, in the woods, amidst flowers, and streams of rippling water, you will forget all the misery that human folly has so recently allotted you. Oh, listen to me, my Prince! I do not jest. I have a soul, and can read to the depths of your own. I will not take you, unready for your task, in order to cast you into the crucible of my own desires or my caprice or my ambition. Everything or nothing! You are chilled, sick at heart, almost overcome by the excess of emotion which but one hour’s liberty has produced in you. For me, that is a certain and unmistakable sign that you do not wish for large and long respiration. Let us choose, then, a life more humble, better suited to our strength. Heaven is my witness that I wish your happiness to be the result of the trial to which I have exposed you.”