supplicate. Who is this lady? I would give anything to ascertain."

This seemed impossible, however, for Aramis was the first to leave; the
lady carefully concealed her head and face, and then immediately
departed. D'Artagnan could hold out no longer; he ran to the window
which looked out on the Rue de Lyon, and saw Aramis entering the inn.
The lady was proceeding in quite an opposite direction, and seemed, in
fact, to be about to rejoin an equipage, consisting of two led horses and
a carriage, which he could see standing close to the borders of the
forest. She was walking slowly, her head bent down, absorbed in the
deepest meditation.

"_Mordioux! Mordioux!_ I must and will learn who that woman is," said
the musketeer again; and then, without further deliberation, he set off
in pursuit of her. As he was going along, he tried to think how he could
possibly contrive to make her raise her veil. "She is not young," he
said, "and is a woman of high rank in society. I ought to know that
figure and peculiar style of walk." As he ran, the sound of his spurs
and of his boots upon the hard ground of the street made a strange
jingling noise; a fortunate circumstance in itself, which he was far
from reckoning upon. The noise disturbed the lady; she seemed to fancy
she was being either followed or pursued, which was indeed the case, and
turned round. D'Artagnan started as if he had received a charge of small
shot in his legs, and then turning suddenly round as if he were going
back the same way he had come, he murmured, "Madame de Chevreuse!"
D'Artagnan would not go home until he had learnt everything. He asked
Celestin to inquire of the grave-digger whose body it was they had buried
that morning.

"A poor Franciscan mendicant friar," replied the latter, "who had not