"In one respect. Your father is dead."

"And my mother?"

"She is dead _for you_."

"But then she lives for others, does she not?"

"Yes."

"And I - and I, then" (the young man looked sharply at Aramis) "am
compelled to live in the obscurity of a prison?"

"Alas! I fear so."

"And that because my presence in the world would lead to the revelation
of a great secret?"

"Certainly, a very great secret."

"My enemy must indeed be powerful, to be able to shut up in the Bastile a
child such as I then was."

"He is."

"More powerful than my mother, then?"

"And why do you ask that?"