“This, then, is eight years ago?”
“Yes, nearly; but I have ceased to reckon time.”
“Excuse me; but what did your tutor tell you, to encourage you to work?”
“He used to say that a man was bound to make for himself, in the world, that fortune which Heaven had refused him at his birth. He added that, being a poor, obscure orphan, I had no one but myself to look to; and that nobody either did, or ever would, take any interest in me. I was, then, in the hall I have spoken of, asleep from fatigue with long fencing. My preceptor was in his room on the first floor, just over me. Suddenly I heard him exclaim, and then he called: ‘Péronne! Péronne!’ It was my nurse whom he called.”
“Yes, I know it,” said Aramis. “Continue, Monseigneur.”
“Very likely she was in the garden; for my preceptor came hastily downstairs. I rose, anxious at seeing him anxious. He opened the garden-door, still crying out, ‘Péronne! Péronne!’ The windows of the hall looked into the court; the shutters were closed; but through a chink in them I saw my tutor draw near a large well, which was almost directly under the windows of his study. He stooped over the brim, looked into the well, and again cried out, and made wild and affrighted gestures. Where I was, I could not only see, but hear—and see and hear I did.”
“Go on, I pray you,” said Aramis.
“Dame Péronne came running up, hearing the governor’s cries. He went to meet her, took her by the arm, and drew her quickly towards the edge; after which, as they both bent over it together, ‘Look, look,’ cried he, ‘what a misfortune!’
“ ‘Calm yourself, calm yourself,’ said Péronne; ‘what is the matter?’
“ ‘The letter!’ he exclaimed; ‘do you see that letter?’ pointing to the bottom of the well.
“ ‘What letter?’ she cried.
“ ‘The letter you see down there; the last letter from the queen.’
“At this word I trembled. My tutor—he who passed for my father, he who was continually recommending me modesty and humility—in correspondence with the queen!
“ ‘The queen’s last letter!’ cried Péronne, without showing more astonishment than at seeing this letter at the bottom of the well; ‘but how came it there?’
“ ‘A chance, Dame Péronne—a singular chance. I was entering my room, and on opening the door, the window, too, being open, a puff of air came suddenly and carried off this paper—this letter of Her Majesty’s; I darted after it, and gained the window just in time to see it flutter a moment in the breeze and disappear down the well.’
“ ‘Well,’ said Dame Péronne; ‘and if the letter has fallen into the well, ’tis all the same as if it was burnt; and as the queen burns all her letters every time she comes—’
“And so you see this lady who came every month was the queen,” said the prisoner.
“ ‘Doubtless, doubtless,’ continued the old gentleman; ‘but this letter contained instructions—how can I follow them?’
“ ‘Write immediately to her; give her a plain account of the accident, and the queen will no doubt write you another letter in place of this.’
“ ‘Oh! the queen would never believe the story,’ said the good gentleman, shaking his head; ‘she will imagine that I want to keep this letter instead of giving it up like the rest, so as to have a hold over her. She is so distrustful, and M. de Mazarin so—Yon devil of an Italian is capable of having us poisoned at the first breath of suspicion.’ ”
Aramis almost imperceptibly smiled.
“ ‘You know, Dame Péronne, they are both so suspicious in all that concerns Philippe.’
“Philippe was the name they gave me,” said the prisoner.
“ ‘Well, ’tis no use hesitating,’ said Dame Péronne, ‘somebody must go down the well.’
“ ‘Of course; so that the person who goes down may read the paper as he is coming up.’
“ ‘But let us choose some villager who cannot read, and then you will be at ease.’
“ ‘Granted; but will not anyone who descends guess that a paper must be important for which we risk a man’s life? However, you have given me an idea, Dame Péronne; somebody shall go down the well, but that somebody shall be myself.’
“But at this notion Dame Péronne lamented and cried in such a manner, and so implored the old nobleman, with tears in her eyes, that he promised her to obtain a ladder long enough to reach down, while she went in search of some stouthearted youth, whom she was to persuade that a jewel had fallen into the well, and that this jewel was wrapped in a paper. ‘And as paper,’ remarked my preceptor, ‘naturally unfolds in water, the young man would not be surprised at finding nothing, after all, but the letter wide open.’
“ ‘But perhaps the writing will be already effaced by that time,’ said Dame Péronne.
“ ‘No consequence, provided we secure the letter. On returning it to the queen, she will see at once that we have not betrayed her; and consequently, as we shall not rouse the distrust of Mazarin, we shall have nothing to fear from him.’
“Having come to this resolution, they parted. I pushed back the shutter, and, seeing that my tutor was about to re-enter, I threw myself on my couch, in a confusion of brain caused by all I had just heard. My governor opened the door a few moments after, and thinking I was asleep gently closed it again. As soon as ever it was shut, I rose, and, listening, heard the sound of retiring footsteps. Then
