“white;” “white horse,” repeated he, like a child that is spelling.

“Ah, mordioux!” cried the suspicious spirit, “a white horse!” And, like that grain of powder which, burning, dilates into ten thousand times its volume, D’Artagnan, enlightened by ideas and suspicions, rapidly reascended the stairs towards the terrace. The white horse was still galloping in the direction of the Loire, at the extremity of which, melting into the vapors of the water, a little sail appeared, wave-balanced like a water-butterfly. “Oh!” cried the musketeer, “only a man who wants to fly would go at that pace across plowed lands; there is but one Fouquet, a financier, to ride thus in open day upon a white horse; there is no one but the lord of Belle-Isle who would make his