"I will tell you."
At this moment the young man, supporting himself on his two elbows, drew close to Aramis' face, with such an expression of dignity, of self-command, and of defiance even, that the bishop felt the electricity of enthusiasm strike in devouring flashes from that seared heart of his, into his brain of adamant.
"Speak, monseigneur. I have already told you that, by conversing with you, I endanger my life. Little value as it has, I implore you to accept it as the ransom of your own."
"Well," resumed the young man, "this is why I suspected that they had killed my nurse and my preceptor."
"Whom you used to call your father."
"Yes; whom I called my father, but whose son I well knew I was not."
"Who caused you to suppose so?"
"For the same reason that you, monsieur, are too respectful for a friend, he was also too respectful for a father."
"I, however," said Aramis, "have no intention to disguise myself."
The young man nodded assent, and continued:—"Undoubtedly, I was not destined to perpetual seclusion," said the prisoner; "and that which makes me believe so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to render me as accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached to my person taught me everything he knew himself—mathematics, a little geometry, astronomy, fencing, and riding. Every morning I went through military exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing up to that period, except the respect paid me, had enlightened me, or even roused my suspicions. I lived as children, as birds, as plants, as the air and the sun do. I had just turned my fifteenth year—"