The Three Musketeers (The Modern Library) - Alexandre Dumas [281]
The crisis past, Milady seemed to have recovered a self-possession which she had never lost; and Felton saw the veil of chastity once again cover those treasures of love so well hidden from him that they but made him desire them the more.
“Ah, now,” he pleaded, “I have only one more thing to ask you: the name of the real executioner. There can be but one; the other was merely the instrument of his wickedness.”
“Oh, my friend, my brother, need I name the villain? Can’t you guess—”
“So it’s he—he again—always he, the great criminal!”
“Ay, the arch criminal, the plague of England, the persecutor of true believers, the fiend who has ravished the honor of so many women. It is he who to satisfy a whim of his corrupt heart is about to plunge England into bloodshed. It is he who protects the Protestants today and will betray them tomorrow—”
“Buckingham!” Felton cried, exasperated. “So it was Buckingham!”
Milady hid her face in her hands, as though unable to bear the burden of shame this name recalled.
“Buckingham, the torturer of this angelic creature!” Felton moaned. “And Thou didst not destroy him with Thy thunder, O God? Instead Thou hast left him noble, honored and powerful to the greater ruin of us all?”
“God abandons those who abandon themselves, Felton.”
“But Buckingham will draw upon his head the punishment reserved for the damned!” Felton cried with growing excitement. “Buckingham invites human justice to forestall that of Heaven?”
“Men fear him and spare him.”
“Not I,” Felton protested. “I do not fear him and shall not spare him!”
An unholy joy swept over Milady. Surely her victim and her victim’s victim now lay in the hollow of her hand. Yet Felton, won over completely, nevertheless was inquiring:
“But how could Lord Winter, my protector, be mixed up in all this?”
“Ah, my friend, often the most cowardly and despicable of men dwell side by side with great and generous creatures. I was engaged to such a man whom I loved and who loved me. He had a heart like yours, Felton; he was a man like yourself. I went to him and told him all; he knew me, that man did, and he never for a moment doubted me. He was a great nobleman, a peer of Buckingham’s in every way. He said nothing; he merely reached for his sword, threw his cloak over his shoulder and made straight for Buckingham’s mansion.”
“Ah, yes, I see what he meant to do,” Felton commented. “But with men like Buckingham, you do not use a sword, it were too noble. You use a dagger!”
“Buckingham had left England the day before on a mission as Ambassador to Spain where he was to solicit the hand of the Infanta for King Charles the first, who was then but Prince of Wales. My fiancé returned, sad at heart.
“‘Darling,’ he told me, ‘this scoundrel has gone and so he has escaped my vengeance for the time being. Meanwhile let us marry as we had planned. Then, leave it to Lord Clark to uphold his honor and that of his wife.’”
“Lord Clark!” cried Felton. “Why, that was the—”
“The brother of Lord Winter. Now you must certainly understand everything? Buckingham stayed abroad almost a year! One week before his return, Lord Clark died, leaving me his sole heir. How did he come to die and whence came the blow? God, Who knows all, can answer. For my part I accuse nobody, yet—”
“What an abyss of infamy!”
“Lord Clark died without revealing anything to his brother. My terrible secret was to be scrupulously concealed until it burst, like a thunderbolt, over the head of the guilty. Your protector disapproved of this marriage between his elder brother and a girl without dowry or means; I felt I could not expect support from a man disappointed in his hopes of an inheritance. I therefore moved to France, resolved to spend the rest of my life there. But my entire fortune is in England. The war interrupted all communication