“you are welcome, my dear friend; you will help me to recover my spirits; to-morrow we will hunt the hare on my plain, which is a superb tract of land, or pursue the deer in my woods, which are magnificent. I have four harriers which are considered the swiftest in the county, and a pack of hounds which are unequalled for twenty leagues around.”

And Porthos heaved another sigh.

“But, first,” interposed D’Artagnan, “you must present me to Madame du Vallon.”

A third sigh from Porthos.

“I lost Madame du Vallon two years ago,” he said, “and you find me still in affliction on that account.

That was the reason why I left my Chateau