The three musketeers
eyes to his gestures—even to a breath that could be interpreted as a
sigh. In short, she studied everything, as a skillful comedian does to
whom a new part has been assigned in a line to which he is not
accustomed.
Face to face with Lord de Winter her plan of conduct was more easy. She
had laid that down the preceding evening. To remain silent and
dignified in his presence; from time to time to irritate him by
affected disdain, by a contemptuous word; to provoke him to threats and
violence which would produce a contrast with her own resignation—such
was her plan. Felton would see all; perhaps he would say nothing, but
he would see.
In the morning, Felton came as usual; but Milady allowed him to preside
over all the preparations for breakfast without addressing a word to
him. At the moment when he was about to retire, she was cheered with a
ray of hope, for she thought he was about to speak; but his lips moved
without any sound leaving his mouth, and making a powerful effort to
control himself, he sent back to his heart the words that were about to
escape from his lips, and went out. Toward midday, Lord de Winter
entered.
It was a tolerably fine winter’s day, and a ray of that pale English
sun which lights but does not warm came through the bars of her prison.
Milady was looking out at the window, and pretended not to hear the
door as it opened.
“Ah, ah!” said Lord de Winter, “after having played comedy, after
having played tragedy, we are now playing melancholy?”
The prisoner made no reply.
“Yes, yes,” continued Lord de Winter, “I understand. You would like
very well to be at liberty on that beach! You would like very well to
be in a good ship dancing upon the waves of that emerald-green sea; you
would like very well, either on land or on the ocean, to lay for me one
of those nice little ambuscades you are so skillful in planning.
Patience, patience! In four days’ time the shore will be beneath your
feet, the sea will be open to you—more open than will perhaps be
agreeable to you, for in four days England will be relieved of you.”
Milady folded her hands, and raising her fine eyes toward heaven,
“Lord, Lord,” said she, with an angelic meekness of gesture and tone,
“pardon this man, as I myself pardon him.”
“Yes, pray, accursed woman!” cried the baron; “your prayer is so much
the more generous from your being, I swear to you, in the power of a
man who will never pardon you!” and he went out.
At the moment he went out a piercing glance darted through the opening
of the nearly closed door, and she perceived Felton, who drew quickly
to one side to prevent being seen by her.
Then she threw herself upon her knees, and began to pray.
“My God, my God!” said she, “thou knowest in what holy cause I suffer;
give me, then, strength to suffer.”
The door opened gently; the beautiful supplicant pretended not to hear
the noise, and in a voice broken by tears, she continued:
“God of vengeance! God of goodness! wilt thou allow the frightful
projects of this man to be accomplished?”
Then only she pretended to hear the sound of Felton’s steps, and rising
quick as thought, she blushed, as if ashamed of being surprised on her
knees.
“I do not like to disturb those who pray, madame,” said Felton,
seriously; “do not disturb yourself on my account, I beseech you.”
“How do you know I was praying, sir?” said Milady, in a voice broken by
sobs. “You were deceived, sir; I was not praying.”
“Do you think, then, madame,” replied Felton, in the same serious
voice, but with a milder tone, “do you think I assume the right of
preventing a creature from prostrating herself before her Creator? God
forbid! Besides, repentance becomes the guilty; whatever crimes they
may have committed, for me the guilty are sacred at the feet of God!”
“Guilty? I?” said Milady, with a smile which might have disarmed the
angel of the last judgment. “Guilty? Oh, my God, thou knowest whether I
am guilty! Say I am condemned, sir, if you please; but you know that
God, who loves martyrs, sometimes permits the innocent to be
condemned.”
“Were you condemned, were you innocent, were you a martyr,” replied
Felton, “the greater would be the necessity for prayer; and I myself
would aid you with my prayers.”
“Oh, you are a just man!” cried Milady, throwing herself at his feet.
“I can hold out no longer, for I fear I shall be wanting in strength at
the moment when I shall be forced to undergo the struggle, and confess
my faith. Listen, then, to the supplication of a despairing woman. You
are abused, sir; but that is not the question. I only ask you one
favor; and if you grant it me, I will bless you in this world and in
the next.”
“Speak to the master, madame,” said Felton; “happily I am neither
charged with the power of pardoning nor punishing. It is upon one
higher placed than I am that God has laid this responsibility.”
“To you—no, to you alone! Listen to me, rather than add to my
destruction, rather than add to my ignominy!”
“If you have merited this shame, madame, if you have incurred this
ignominy, you must submit to it as an offering to God.”
“What do you say? Oh, you do not understand me! When I speak of
ignominy, you think I speak of some chastisement, of imprisonment or
death. Would to heaven! Of what consequence to me is imprisonment or
death?”
“It is I who no longer understand you, madame,” said Felton.
“Or, rather, who pretend not to understand me, sir!” replied the
prisoner, with a smile of incredulity.
“No, madame, on the honor of a soldier, on the faith of a Christian.”
“What, you are ignorant of Lord de Winter’s designs upon me?”
“I am.”
“Impossible; you are his confidant!”
“I never lie, madame.”
“Oh, he conceals them too little for you not to divine them.”
“I seek to divine nothing, madame; I wait till I am confided in, and
apart from that which Lord de Winter has said to me before you, he has
confided nothing to me.”
“Why, then,” cried Milady, with an incredible tone of truthfulness,
“you are not his accomplice; you do not know that he destines me to a
disgrace which all the punishments of the world cannot equal in
horror?”
“You are deceived, madame,” said Felton, blushing; “Lord de Winter is
not capable of such a crime.”
“Good,” said Milady to herself; “without thinking what it is, he calls
it a crime!” Then aloud, “The friend of that wretch is capable of
everything.”
“Whom do you call _that wretch?_” asked Felton.
“Are there, then, in England two men to whom such an epithet can be
applied?”
“You mean George Villiers?” asked Felton, whose looks became excited.
“Whom Pagans and unbelieving Gentiles call Duke of Buckingham,” replied
Milady. “I could not have thought that there was an Englishman in all
England who would have required so long an explanation to make him
understand of whom I was speaking.”
“The hand of the Lord is stretched over him,” said Felton; “he will not
escape the chastisement he deserves.”
Felton only expressed, with regard to the duke, the feeling of
execration which all the English had declared toward him whom the
Catholics themselves called the extortioner, the pillager, the
debauchee, and whom the Puritans styled simply Satan.
“Oh, my God, my God!” cried Milady; “when I supplicate thee to pour
upon this man the chastisement which is his due, thou knowest it is not
my own vengeance I pursue, but the deliverance of a whole nation that I
implore!”
“Do you know him, then?” asked Felton.
“At length he interrogates me!” said Milady to herself, at the height
of joy at having obtained so quickly such a great result. “Oh, know
him? Yes, yes! to my misfortune, to my eternal misfortune!” and Milady
twisted her arms as if in a paroxysm of grief.
Felton no doubt felt within himself that his strength was abandoning
him, and he made several steps toward the door; but the prisoner, whose
eye never left him, sprang in pursuit of him and stopped him.
“Sir,” cried she, “be kind, be clement, listen to my prayer! That
knife, which the fatal prudence of the baron deprived me of, because he
knows the use I would make of it! Oh, hear me to the end! that knife,
give it to me for a minute only, for mercy’s, for pity’s sake! I will
embrace your knees! You shall shut the door that you may be certain I
contemplate no injury to you! My God! to you—the only just, good, and
compassionate being I have met with! To you—my preserver, perhaps! One
minute that knife, one minute, a single minute, and I will restore it
to you through the grating of the door. Only one minute, Mr. Felton,
and you will have saved my honor!”
“To kill yourself?” cried Felton, with terror, forgetting to withdraw
his hands from the hands of the prisoner, “to kill yourself?”
“I have told, sir,” murmured Milady, lowering her voice, and allowing
herself to sink overpowered to the ground; “I have told my secret! He
knows all! My God, I am lost!”
Felton remained standing, motionless and undecided.
“He still doubts,” thought Milady; “I have not been earnest enough.”
Someone was heard in the corridor; Milady recognized the step of Lord
de Winter.
Felton recognized it also, and made a step toward the door.
Milady sprang toward him. “Oh, not a word,” said she in a concentrated
voice, “not a word of all that I have said to you to this man, or I am
lost, and it would be you—you—”
Then as the steps drew near, she became silent for fear of being heard,
applying, with a gesture of infinite terror, her beautiful hand to
Felton’s mouth.
Felton gently repulsed Milady, and she sank into a chair.
Lord de Winter passed before the door without stopping, and they heard
the noise of his footsteps soon die away.
Felton, as pale as death, remained some instants with his ear bent and
listening; then, when the sound was quite extinct, he breathed like a
man awaking from a dream, and rushed out of the apartment.
“Ah!” said Milady, listening in her turn to the noise of Felton’s
steps, which withdrew in a direction opposite to those of Lord de
Winter; “at length you are mine!”
Then her brow darkened. “If he tells the baron,” said she, “I am
lost—for the baron, who knows very well that I shall not kill myself,
will place me before him with a knife in my hand, and he will discover
that all this despair is but acted.”
She placed herself before the glass, and regarded herself attentively;
never had she appeared more beautiful.
“Oh, yes,” said she, smiling, “but we won’t tell him!”
In the evening Lord de Winter accompanied the supper.
“Sir,” said Milady, “is your presence an indispensable accessory of my
captivity? Could you not spare me the increase of torture which your
visits cause me?”
“How, dear sister!” said Lord de Winter. “Did not you sentimentally
inform me with that pretty mouth of yours, so cruel to me today, that
you came to England solely for the pleasure of seeing me at your ease,
an enjoyment of which you told me you so sensibly felt the deprivation
that you had risked everything for it—seasickness, tempest, captivity?
Well, here I am; be satisfied. Besides, this time, my visit has a
motive.”
Milady trembled; she thought Felton had told all. Perhaps never in her
life had this woman, who had experienced so many opposite and powerful
emotions, felt her heart beat so violently.
She was seated. Lord de Winter took a chair, drew it toward her, and
sat down close beside her. Then taking a paper out of his pocket, he
unfolded it slowly.
“Here,” said he, “I want to show you the kind of passport which I have
drawn up, and which will serve you henceforward as the rule of order in
the life I consent to leave you.”
Then turning his eyes from Milady to the paper, he read: “‘Order to
conduct—’ The name is blank,” interrupted Lord de Winter. “If you have