“Oh, do not deny it! Answer!” continued Milady.
“Well, yes, Madame,” said the novice, “Are we rivals?”
The countenance of Milady was illumined by so savage a joy that under any other circumstances Madame Bonacieux would have fled in terror; but she was absorbed by jealousy.
“Speak, Madame!” resumed Madame Bonacieux, with an energy of which she might not have been believed capable. “Have you been, or are you, his mistress?”
“Oh, no!” cried Milady, with an accent that admitted no doubt of her truth. “Never, never!”
“I believe you,” said Madame Bonacieux; “but why, then, did you cry out so?”
“Do you not understand?” said Milady, who had already overcome her agitation and recovered all her presence of mind.
“How can I understand? I know nothing.”
“Can you not understand that M. d’Artagnan, being my friend, might take me into his confidence?”
“Truly?”
“Do you not perceive that I know all—your abduction from the little house at St. Germain, his despair, that of his friends, and their useless inquiries up to this moment? How could I help being astonished when, without having the least expectation of such a thing, I meet you face to face—you, of whom we have so often spoken together, you whom he loves with all his soul, you whom he had taught me to love before I had seen you! Ah, dear Constance, I have found you, then; I see you at last!”