"Your highness's very humble and very obedient servant,
"Annibal, Comte de Coconnas,
"The inseparable friend of Monsieur de la Mole."
This masterpiece finished, Coconnas read it aloud to La Mole, who merely shrugged his shoulders.
"Well! what do you say to it?" asked Coconnas, who had not seen the shrug, or who had pretended not to see it.
"I say," replied La Mole, "that Monsieur d'Alençon will laugh at us."
"At us?"
"Both of us."
"That will be better, it seems to me, than to strangle each of us separately."
"Bah!" said La Mole, laughing, "the one will not necessarily prevent the other."
"Well! so much the worse. Come what may, I will send the letter to-morrow morning. Where shall we sleep when we leave here?"
"At Maître la Hurière's, in that little room in which you tried to stab me before we were Orestes and Pylades!"