"She is not young," he said, "and is a woman of high rank in society.

I ought to know that figure and peculiar style of walk." As he ran, the sound of his spurs and of his boots upon the hard ground of the street made a strange jingling noise; a fortunate circumstance in itself, which he was far from reckoning upon.

The noise disturbed the lady; she seemed to fancy she was being either followed or pursued, which was indeed the case, and turned round.

D'Artagnan started as if he had received a charge of small shot in his legs, and then turning suddenly round, as if he were going back the same way he had come, he murmured, "Madame de Chevreuse!" D'Artagnan would not go home until he had learned everything.

He asked Celestin to inquire of the grave-digger whose body it was they had buried that morning.
[Illustration: D'ARTAGNAN, RECLINING UPON AN IMMENSE STRAIGHT-BACKED CHAIR, WITH HIS LEGS NOT STRETCHED OUT, BUT SIMPLY PLACED UPON A STOOL, FORMED AN ANGLE OF THE MOST OBTUSE FORM THAT COULD POSSIBLY BE SEEN .-- _Page 88._] "A poor Franciscan mendicant friar," replied the latter, "who had not even a dog to love him in this world and to accompany him to his last resting-place." "If that were really the case," thought D'Artagnan, "we should not have found Aramis present at his funeral.