The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [266]
“And who is the son of Satan?”
“Are there two men in England who may be so described?”
“You mean George Villiers?” Felton asked, his eyes blazing.
“I mean George Villiers whom the godless and the libertines call Duke of Buckingham. I never dreamed there was a single Englishman in all England who requires such lengthy explanations to make him know who I meant.”
“The hand of the Lord hangs heavy over his head,” Felton intoned sententiously, “nor shall he escape the punishment which he has earned.”
With regard to the Duke, Felton was merely voicing the execration all Englishmen entertained toward a man whom the Roman Catholics themselves called the extortioner, the peculator and the profligate, and whom the Puritans referred to simply as Satan, Abaddon, Apollyon or Belial.
“Ah, God! ah, God!” Milady wrung her hands. “When I crave that Thou visit upon this miscreant the chastisement which he so richly merits, Thou knowest well that I seek not mine own vengeance but rather the deliverance of a whole nation which is in helpless bondage!”
“You know the Duke of Buckingham?” Felton inquired.
Gratified that Felton should at last question her and happy that she had achieved this so readily and profitably:
“Know him?” Milady repeated. “Know him? Alas, I know him to my great sorrow and my eternal grief.” And she wrung her hands as if in a paroxysm of agony.
Felton, for his part, felt his strength failing; he stumbled toward the door. But the prisoner, watching his every step, sprang forward to intercept him.
“Be generous, be merciful and listen to my prayer,” she pleaded. “I had a knife as you know; Lord Winter’s fatal prudence deprived me of it because he well knows to what use I would put it. Oh, please do not leave me; please hear me to the end! Give me back that knife for one minute only in the name of pity and charity. I am at your knees, a woman groveling in front of you. Look at me before you close the door upon me; tell me you know I do not seek to harm you.” She paused dramatically, flung her arms about his knees. “To harm you!” she went on. “You, the only just, good and compassionate being I have ever met; you, who may well be my savior. Give me that knife for an instant, I beseech you, for an instant only, and I shall return it to you by the grating. One infinitesimal moment, Mr. Felton, and you will have saved my honor!”
“You mean to kill yourself!” Felton asked, forgetting in his terror to withdraw his hands from her grasp. “You mean to kill yourself?”
With consummate artistry, Milady fell back as in a swoon.
“God have mercy upon me!” she murmured as she sank to the floor, “I have given myself away. He knows my secret and I am lost!”
Felton hovered over her, motionless and nonplussed. Milady, recognizing that he was still somewhat dubious, blamed herself for underacting her part. Suddenly footsteps in the corridor brought them both to their senses; both recognized Lord Winter’s tread. Felton edged toward the door, Milady sprang toward him.
“Do not breathe a word of this, I beg you,” she urged in a tense, sultry voice. “Not one word to that man or I am lost and you, you, you will be—”
Then as the steps drew nearer, fearing that she might be overheard, she pressed her beautiful hand on Felton’s lips with a gesture of extreme terror. Felton gently repulsed her and tottering across the room she sank into a chaise-longue.
Lord Winter passed by the door without stopping; the echo of his footsteps grew fainter in the distance.
Felton, pale as death, stood there straining his ears. When all was silence in the corridor, he sighed deeply, like a man suddenly awaking from a dream. Suddenly he darted out of the room. Milady in turn listened to departing footsteps as Felton moved off in the opposite direction from that Lord Winter had taken.
“Ah!” Milady breathed triumphantly. “At last you are mine!” Then her countenance darkening: “But if he speaks to Lord Winter I am irremediably lost,” she thought. “Winter knows quite well