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 any preference you can point it out to me; and if it be not within a thousand leagues of London, attention will be paid to your wishes.  I will begin again, then: 

“’Order to conduct to—­the person named Charlotte Backson, branded by the justice of the kingdom of France, but liberated after chastisement.  She is to dwell in this place without ever going more than three leagues from it.  In case of any attempt to escape, the penalty of death is to be applied.  She will receive five shillings per day for lodging and food’”.

“That order does not concern me,” replied Milady, coldly, “since it bears another name than mine.”