“I swear to you, Monsieur commissary, that you are in the profoundest error, that I know nothing in the world about what my wife had to do, that I am entirely a stranger to what she has done; and that if she has committed any follies, I renounce her, I abjure her, I curse her!”

“Bah!” said Athos to the commissary, “if you have no more need of me, send me somewhere. Your M. Bonacieux is very tiresome.”

The commissary designated by the same gesture Athos and Bonacieux, “Let them be guarded more closely than ever.”

“And yet,” said Athos, with his habitual calmness, “if it be M. d’Artagnan who is concerned in this matter, I do not perceive how I can take his place.”

“Do as I bade you,” cried the commissary, “and preserve absolute secrecy. You understand!”