THE RENDEZVOUS

D’Artagnan ran home immediately, and although it was three o’clock in the morning and he had some of the worst quarters of Paris to traverse, he met with no misadventure. Everyone knows that drunkards and lovers have a protecting deity.

He found the door of his passage open, sprang up the stairs and knocked softly in a manner agreed upon between him and his lackey. Planchet*, whom he had sent home two hours before from the Hôtel de Ville, telling him to sit up for him, opened the door for him.

* The reader may ask, “How came Planchet here?”