A leather pocketbook, a purse, in which was evidently a part of the sum which the bandit had received, with a dice box and dice, completed the possessions of the dead man.
He left the box and dice where they fell, threw the purse to the wounded man, and eagerly opened the pocketbook.
Among some unimportant papers he found the following letter, that which he had sought at the risk of his life: "Since you have lost sight of that woman and she is now in safety in the convent, which you should never have allowed her to reach, try, at least, not to miss the man.

If you do, you know that my hand stretches far, and that you shall pay very dearly for the hundred louis you have from me." No signature.

Nevertheless it was plain the letter came from Milady.

He consequently kept it as a piece of evidence, and being in safety behind the angle of the trench, he began to interrogate the wounded man.

He confessed that he had undertaken with his comrade--the same who was killed--to carry off a young woman who was to leave Paris by the Barriere de La Villette; but having stopped to drink at a cabaret, they had missed the carriage by ten minutes.
"But what were you to do with that woman ?" asked d'Artagnan, with anguish.
"We were to have conveyed her to a hotel in the Place Royale," said the wounded man.
"Yes, yes!" murmured d'Artagnan; "that's the place--Milady's own residence!" Then the young man tremblingly comprehended what a terrible thirst for vengeance urged this woman on to destroy him, as well as all who loved him, and how well she must be acquainted with the affairs of the court, since she had discovered all.