castle. He sat down to a sumptuous table, of which they did
him the honors as to a king. But he could draw nothing from
Mousqueton, -- the faithful servant seemed to shed tears at
will, but that was all.

D'Artagnan, after a night passed in an excellent bed,
reflected much upon the meaning of Aramis's letter; puzzled
himself as to the relation of the Equinox with the affairs
of Porthos; and being unable to make anything out unless it
concerned some amour of the bishop's, for which it was
necessary that the days and nights should be equal,
D'Artagnan left Pierrefonds as he had left Melun, as he had
left the chateau of the Comte de la Fere. It was not,
however, without a melancholy, which might in good sooth
pass for one of the most dismal of D'Artagnan's moods. His
head cast down, his eyes fixed, he suffered his legs to hang
on each side of his horse, and said to himself, in that
vague sort of reverie which ascends sometimes to the
sublimest eloquence:

"No more friends! no more future! no more anything! My
energies are broken like the bonds of our ancient
friendship. Oh, old age is coming, cold and inexorable; it
envelops in its funereal crape all that was brilliant, all
that was embalming in my youth; then it throws that sweet
burthen on its shoulders and carries it away with the rest
into the fathomless gulf of death."

A shudder crept through the heart of the Gascon, so brave
and so strong against all the misfortunes of life; and