“I know that it is terrible,” said D’Artagnan; “but when I reflect that we have killed English, Rochellais, Spaniards, nay, even French, who never did us any other harm but to aim at and to miss us, whose only fault was to cross swords with us and to be unable to ward off our blows—I can, on my honor, find an excuse for my share in the murder of that woman.”
“As for me,” said Porthos, “now that you have reminded me of it, Athos, I have the scene again before me, as if I now were there. Milady was there, as it were, where you sit.” (Athos changed color.) “I—I was where D’Artagnan stands. I wore a long sword which cut like a Damascus—you remember it, Aramis for you always called it Balizarde. Well, I swear to you, all three, that had the executioner of Bethune—was he not of Bethune?—yes, egad! of Bethune!—not been there, I would have cut off the head of that infamous being without thinking of it, or even after thinking of it. She was a most atrocious woman.”
“And then,” said Aramis, with the tone of philosophical indifference which he had assumed since he had belonged to the church and in which there was more atheism than confidence in God, “what is the use of thinking of it all? At the last hour we must confess this action and God knows better than we can whether it is a crime, a fault, or a meritorious deed. I repent of it? Egad! no. Upon my honor and by the holy cross; I only regret it because she was a woman.”
“The most satisfactory part of the matter,” said D’Artagnan, “is that there remains no trace of it.”
“She had a son,” observed Athos.
“Oh! yes, I know that,” said D’Artagnan, “and you mentioned it to me; but who knows what has become of him? If the serpent be dead, why not its brood? Do you think his uncle De Winter would have brought up that young viper? De Winter probably condemned the son as he had done the mother.”
“Then,” said Athos, “woe to De Winter, for the child had done no harm.”
“May the devil take me, if the child be not dead,” said Porthos. “There is so much fog in that detestable country, at least so D’Artagnan declares.”
Just as the quaint conclusion reached by Porthos was about to bring back hilarity to faces now more or less clouded, hasty footsteps were heard upon the stair and some one knocked at the door.
“Come in,” cried Athos.