“Therefore I will make no more, and will content myself with asking you a favor.”

“Oh, monsieur.”

Fouquet drew from his finger a ring worth about three thousand pistoles. “Monsieur,” said he, “this stone was given me by a friend of my childhood, by a man to whom you have rendered a great service.”

“A service — I?” said the musketeer; “I have rendered a service to one of your friends?”

“You cannot have forgotten it, monsieur, for it dates this very day.”

“And that friend’s name was — ”

“M. d’Eymeris.”