Chapter 59

Chapter LIX:
After the Storm.

Our readers will doubtlessly have been asking themselves how it happened
that Athos, of whom not a word has been said for some time past, arrived
so very opportunely at court. We will, without delay, endeavor to
satisfy their curiosity.

Porthos, faithful to his duty as an arranger of affairs, had, immediately
after leaving the Palais Royal, set off to join Raoul at the Minimes in
the Bois de Vincennes, and had related everything, even to the smallest
details, which had passed between Saint-Aignan and himself. He finished
by saying that the message which the king had sent to his favorite would
probably not occasion more than a short delay, and that Saint-Aignan, as
soon as he could leave the king, would not lose a moment in accepting the
invitation Raoul had sent him.

But Raoul, less credulous than his old friend, had concluded from
Porthos's recital that if Saint-Aignan was going to the king, Saint-
Aignan would tell the king everything, and that the king would most
assuredly forbid Saint-Aignan to obey the summons he had received to the
hostile meeting. The consequence of his reflections was, that he had
left Porthos to remain at the place appointed for the meeting, in the
very improbable case that Saint-Aignan would come there; having
endeavored to make Porthos promise that he would not remain there more
than an hour or an hour and a half at the very longest. Porthos,
however, formally refused to do anything of the kind, but, on the
contrary, installed himself in the Minimes as if he were going to take
root there, making Raoul promise that when he had been to see his father,
he would return to his own apartments, in order that Porthos's servant
might know where to find him in case M. de Saint-Aignan should happen to
come to the rendezvous.

Bragelonne had left Vincennes, and proceeded at once straight to the
apartments of Athos, who had been in Paris during the last two days, the
comte having been already informed of what had taken place, by a letter
from D'Artagnan. Raoul arrived at his father's; Athos, after having held
out his hand to him, and embraced him most affectionately, made a sign
for him to sit down.

"I know you come to me as a man would go to a friend, vicomte, whenever
he is suffering; tell me, therefore, what is it that brings you now."

The young man bowed, and began his recital; more than once in the course
of it his tears almost choked his utterance, and a sob, checked in his
throat, compelled him to suspend his narrative for a few minutes. Athos
most probably already knew how matters stood, as we have just now said
D'Artagnan had already written to him; but, preserving until the
conclusion that calm, unruffled composure