”

Porthos pushed out one leg, allowing a groan to escape him.

“Come, come! my friend,” insisted the prelate with a sort of impatience.

Porthos drew the other leg out of the bed. “And is it absolutely necessary that I should go, at once?”

“Urgently necessary.”

Porthos got upon his feet, and began to shake both walls and floors with his steps of a marble statue.

“Hush! hush! for the love of Heaven, my dear Porthos!” said Aramis, “you will wake somebody.”

“Ah! that’s true,” replied Porthos, in a voice of thunder, “I forgot that; but be satisfied, I am on guard.”