“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.