The field of supposition was thrown open.

Now, what could he conjecture?
The vessel had not returned.

It is true that a brisk wind had prevailed for three days; but the corvette was known to be a good sailer and solid in its timbers; it had no need to fear a gale of wind, and it ought, according to the calculation of D'Artagnan, to have either returned to Brest, or come back to the mouth of the Loire.
Such was the news, ambiguous, it is true, but in some degree reassuring to him personally, which D'Artagnan brought to Louis XIV., when the king, followed by all the court, returned to Paris.
Louis, satisfied with his success--Louis, more mild and affable as he felt himself more powerful--had not ceased for an instant to ride beside the carriage door of Mademoiselle de la Valliere.

Everybody was anxious to amuse the two queens, so as to make them forget this abandonment by son and husband.

Everything breathed the future, the past was nothing to anybody.