“Ah, my dear Monsieur Bonacieux, you are generous in this matter. I see it and I thank you for it. Thus, then, you will take this bag, and you will go away without being too malcontent.” “I go away enchanted.” “Farewell, then, or rather, _au revoir_, for I hope we shall meet again.” “Whenever Monseigneur wishes, I am always at at his Eminence’s orders.” “That will be frequently, I assure you, for I have found something extremely agreeable in your conversation.” “Oh! Monseigneur!” “_Au revoir_, Monsieur Bonacieux, _au revoir!_” And the cardinal made him a sign with his hand, to which Bonacieux replied by bowing to the ground. He then went out backward, and when he was in the antechamber the cardinal heard him, in his enthusiasm, crying aloud, “Long life to the Monseigneur! Long life to his Eminence! Long life to the great cardinal!” The cardinal listened with a smile to this vociferous manifestation of the feelings of M. Bonacieux; and then, when Bonacieux’s cries were no longer audible, “Good!” said he, “that man would henceforward lay down his life for me.” And the cardinal began to examine with the greatest attention the map of La Rochelle, which, as we have said, lay open on the desk, tracing with a pencil the line in which the famous dyke was to pass which, eighteen months later, shut up the port of the besieged city. As he was in the deepest of his strategic meditations, the door opened, and Rochefort returned. “Well?” said the cardinal, eagerly, rising with a promptitude which proved the degree of importance he attached to the commission with which he had charged the count. “Well,” said the latter, “a young woman of about twenty-six or twenty-eight years of age, and a man of from thirty-five to forty, have indeed lodged at the two houses pointed out by your Eminence; but the woman left last night, and the man this morning.” “It was they!” cried the cardinal, looking at the clock; “and now it is too late to have them pursued. The duchess is at Tours, and the duke at Boulogne. It is in London they must be found.” “What are your Eminence’s orders?” “Not a word of what has passed. Let the queen remain in perfect security; let her be ignorant that we know her secret. Let her believe that we are in search of some conspiracy or other. Send me the keeper of the seals, Séguier.” “And that man, what has your Eminence done with him?” “What man?” asked the cardinal. “That Bonacieux.” “I have done with him all that could be done. I have made him a spy upon his wife.” The Comte de Rochefort bowed like a man who acknowledges the superiority of the master as great, and retired. Left alone, the cardinal seated himself again and wrote a letter, which he secured with his special seal. Then he rang. The officer entered for the fourth time. “Tell Vitray to come to me,” said he, “and tell him to get ready for a journey.” An instant after, the man he asked for was before him, booted and spurred.