his brows.

"How?"

"I suspected it."

"Why?"

"I will tell you."

At this moment the young man, supporting himself on his two elbows, drew
close to Aramis's 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 great 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 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?"

"Just as you, monsieur, are too respectful for a friend, he was also too