“Buckingham’s assassin, Felton’s assassin, my brother’s assassin, I demand justice upon you, and I swear that if it be not granted to me, I will execute it myself.”
And Lord Winter ranged himself by D’Artagnan’s side, leaving his place free for another accuser.
Milady buried her face in her two hands, and tried to recall her ideas, confused in a mortal vertigo.
“It is my turn,” said Athos, himself trembling as the lion trembles at the sight of the serpent—“it is my turn. I married this woman when she was a young girl. I married her in spite of all my family. I gave her my wealth, I gave her my name; and one day I discovered that this woman was branded—this woman was marked with a fleur-de-lis on her left shoulder.”
“Oh,” said milady, “I defy you to find the tribunal which pronounced that infamous sentence upon me. I defy you to find him who executed it.”
“Silence!” said a voice. “It is for me to reply to that!”
And the man in the red cloak came forward in his turn.
“Who is this man? who is this man?” cried milady. She was suffocated by terror; her hair, which had become undone, seemed to stand up over her livid countenance as if it were alive.
All eyes were fixed on this man, for to all except Athos he was unknown.
Even Athos looked at him with as much stupefaction as the others, for he knew not how he could in any way be mixed up with the horrible drama which was at that moment coming to its climax.
After approaching milady with a slow and solemn step, so that the table alone separated them, the unknown took off his mask.
Milady for some time examined with increasing terror his pale face, framed in its black hair and beard, and the only expression of which was icy sternness. Then all at once,
“Oh no, no!” cried she, rising and retreating to the very wall; “no, no! it is an infernal apparition! It is not he! Help, help!” she screamed in a hoarse voice, turning to the wall as if she could tear an opening in it with her hands.
“But who are you, then?” cried all the witnesses of this scene.
“Ask this woman,” said the man in the red cloak, “for you see well enough she knows me!”
“The executioner of Lille! the executioner of Lille!” cried milady, a prey to wild terror, and clinging with her hands to the wall to avoid falling.
Everyone drew back, and the man in the red cloak remained standing alone in the middle of the room.
“Oh, forgive me, pardon, pardon!” cried the wretched woman, falling on her knees.
The unknown waited for silence.
“I told you so—that she knew me,” he went on to say. “Yes, I am the executioner of the city of Lille, and here is my story.”
All eyes were fixed upon this man; his words were awaited with anxious eagerness.
“This young woman when she was a young maiden was as beautiful as she is now. She was a nun in the convent of the Benedictines of Templemar. A young priest, of a simple and believing heart, was the chaplain of that convent. She undertook to seduce him, and succeeded; she would have seduced a saint.
