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 ?" "Because my mother would have taken my part." Aramis hesitated.

"Yes, monseigneur; more powerful than your mother." "Seeing, then, that my nurse and preceptor were carried off, and that I, also, was separated from them--either they were, or I am, very dangerous to my enemy ?" "Yes; but you are alluding to a peril from which he freed himself, by causing the nurse and preceptor to disappear," answered Aramis, quietly.
"Disappear!" cried the prisoner, "how did they disappear ?" "In a very sure way," answered Aramis--"they are dead." The young man turned pale, and passed his hand tremblingly over his face.

"Poison ?" he asked.
"Poison." The prisoner reflected a moment.

"My enemy must indeed have been very cruel, or hard beset by necessity, to assassinate those two innocent people, my sole support; for the worthy gentleman and the poor nurse had never harmed a living being." "In your family, monseigneur, necessity is stern.

And so it is necessity which compels me, to my great regret, to tell you that this gentleman and the unhappy lady have been assassinated." "Oh, you tell me nothing I am not aware of," said the prisoner, knitting 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.