But all these reasons were combated, destroyed, overthrown, by that feeling of intimate pain which, on certain occasions, takes possession of our being, and cries to us so as to be understood unmistakably that some great misfortune is hanging over us.
Then d’Artagnan became almost wild. He ran along the high road, took the path he had before taken, and reaching the ferry, interrogated the boatman.
About seven o’clock in the evening, the boatman had taken over a young woman, wrapped in a black mantle, who appeared to be very anxious not to be recognized; but entirely on account of her precautions, the boatman had paid more attention to her and discovered that she was young and pretty.
There were then, as now, a crowd of young and pretty women who came to St. Cloud, and who had reasons for not being seen, and yet d’Artagnan did not for an instant doubt that it was Madame Bonacieux whom the boatman had noticed.