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 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.