Part 60 (1/2)

”Well, if you are cold, Planchet, you can go into one of those cabarets that you see yonder, and be in waiting for ”

”Monsieur, I have eaten and drunk respectfully the crown you gave , so that I have not a sou left in case I should be cold”

”Here's half a pistole To from his horse, threw the bridle to Planchet, and departed at a quick pace, folding his cloak around him

”Good Lord, how cold I aht of his master; and in such haste was he to warht to a house set out with all the attributes of a suburban tavern, and knocked at the door

In the ed into a bypath, continued his route and reached St Cloud; but instead of following the main street he turned behind the chateau, reached a sort of retired lane, and found himself soon in front of the pavilion nah wall, at the angle of which was the pavilion, ran along one side of this lane, and on the other was a little garden connected with a poor cottage which was protected by a hedge froained the place appointed, and as no signal had been given him by which to announce his presence, he waited

Not the least noise was to be heard; it ined that he was a hundred e, after having cast a glance behind it Beyond that hedge, that garden, and that cottage, a dark mist enveloped with its folds that ilittered a few luminous points, the funeral stars of that hell!

But for d'Artagnan all aspects were clothed happily, all ideas wore a smile, all shades were diaphanous The appointed hour was about to strike In fact, at the end of a few minutes the belfry of St Cloud let fall slowly ten strokes froout its laht; but each of those strokes, which made up the expected hour, vibrated har man

His eyes were fixed upon the little pavilion situated at the angle of the wall, of which all the ere closed with shutters, except one on the first story Through thisshone a e of two or three linden trees which forroup outside the park There could be no doubt that behind this little hich threw forth such friendly beams, the pretty Mme Bonacieux expected hinan waited half an hour without the least i little abode of which he could perceive a part of the ceiling with its gilded ance of the rest of the apartment

The belfry of St Cloud sounded half past ten

This tinan felt a cold shi+ver run through his veins Perhaps the cold began to affect him, and he took a perfectly physical sensation for a moral impression

Then the idea seized him that he had read incorrectly, and that the appointment was for eleven o'clock He drew near to the , and placing hiht should fall upon the letter as he held it, he drew it froain; but he had not been mistaken, the appointinning to be rather uneasy at this silence and this solitude

Eleven o'clock sounded

D'Artagnan began now really to fear that so had happened to Mme

Bonacieux He clapped his hands three tinal of lovers; but nobody replied to hiht, with a touch of vexation, that perhaps the young wo for him He approached the wall, and tried to clinan could get no hold

At that ht still shone; and as one of theht that frolimpse of the interior of the pavilion

The tree was easy to clinan was but twenty years old, and consequently had not yet forgotten his schoolboy habits In an instant he was ah the transparent panes into the interior of the pavilion

It was a strange thing, and one which nan tremble from the sole of his foot to the roots of his hair, to find that this soft light, this calhtened a scene of fearful disorder One of the as broken, the door of the chaes A table, which had been covered with an elegant supper, was overturned The decanters broken in pieces, and the fruits crushed, strewed the floor Everything in the apartle D'Artagnan even fancied he could recognize aar the cloth and the curtains He hastened to descend into the street, with a frightful beating at his heart; he wished to see if he could find other traces of violence

The little soft light shone on in the cal that he had not before reround, trampled here and hoofmarked there, presented confused traces of e, which appeared to have come from Paris, had made a deep impression in the soft earth, which did not extend beyond the pavilion, but turned again toward Paris

At length d'Artagnan, in pursuing his researches, found near the wall a wolove, wherever it had not touched the round, was of irreproachable odor It was one of those perfuloves that lovers like to snatch froations, a e drops frouish; his respiration was broken and short And yet he said, to reassure hi in co woman had made an appointment with hiht have been detained in Paris by her duties, or perhaps by the jealousy of her husband