threat completed the intimidation of the host. After the king and the cardinal, M. de Tréville was the man whose name was perhaps most frequently repeated by the military, and even by citizens. There was, to be sure, Father Joseph, but his name was never pronounced but with a subdued voice, such was the terror inspired by his Gray Eminence, as the cardinal’s familiar was called. 

 Throwing down his spit, and ordering his wife to do the same with her broom handle, and the servants with their sticks, he set the first example of commencing an earnest search for the lost letter. 

 “Does the letter contain anything valuable?” demanded the host, after a few minutes of useless investigation. 

 “Zounds! I think it does indeed!” cried the Gascon, who reckoned upon this letter for making his way at court. “It contained my fortune!” 

 “Bills upon Spain?” asked the disturbed host. 

 “Bills upon his Majesty’s private treasury,” answered D’Artagnan, who, reckoning upon entering into the king’s service in consequence of this recommendation, believed he could make this somewhat hazardous reply without telling of a falsehood. 

 “The devil!” cried the host, at his wits’ end. 

 “But it’s of no importance,” continued D’Artagnan, with natural assurance; “it’s of no importance. The money is nothing; that letter was everything. I would rather have lost a thousand pistoles than have lost it.” He would not have risked more if he had said twenty thousand; but a certain juvenile modesty restrained him. 

 A ray of light all at once broke upon the mind of the host as he was giving himself to the devil upon finding nothing. 

 “That letter is not lost!” cried he. 

 “What!” cried D’Artagnan. 

 “No, it has been stolen from you.” 

 “Stolen? By whom?” 

 “By the gentleman who was here yesterday. He came down into the kitchen, where your doublet was. He remained there some time alone. I would lay a wager he has stolen it.” 

 “Do you think so?” answered D’Artagnan, but little convinced, as he knew better than anyone else how entirely personal the value of this letter was, and saw nothing in it likely to tempt cupidity. The fact was that none of his servants, none of the 

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