“Perhaps we shall meet on our road.”

“That is not probable.”

“Who knows?

Chance is so capricious. Adieu, till we meet again! Apropos, should Mazarin speak to you about me, tell him that I should have requested you to acquaint him that in a short time he will see whether I am, as he says, too old for action.”

And Rochefort went away with one of those diabolical smiles which used formerly to make D’Artagnan shudder, but D’Artagnan could now see it without alarm, and smiling in his turn, with an expression of melancholy which the recollections called up by that smile could, perhaps, alone give to his countenance, he said:

“Go, demon, do what thou wilt! It matters little now to me. There’s