respectful for a father."

"I, however," said Aramis, "have no intention to disguise myself."

The young man nodded assent and continued: "Undoubtedly, I was not
destined to perpetual seclusion," said the prisoner; "and that which
makes me believe so, above all, now, is the care that was taken to render
me as accomplished a cavalier as possible. The gentleman attached to my
person taught me everything he knew himself - mathematics, a little
geometry, astronomy, fencing and riding. Every morning I went through
military exercises, and practiced on horseback. Well, one morning during
the summer, it being very hot, I went to sleep in the hall. Nothing, up
to that period, except the respect paid me, had enlightened me, or even
roused my suspicions. I lived as children, as birds, as plants, as the
air and the sun do. I had just turned my fifteenth year - "

"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: 'Perronnette!
Perronnette!' It was my nurse whom he called."