“Oh, my God, my God!” cried milady; “when I supplicate Thee to pour on this man the chastisement which is his due, Thou knowest that I pursue not my own vengeance, but that I pray for the deliverance of a whole nation!”
“Do you know him, then?” asked Felton.
“At length he questions me!” said milady to herself, at the height of joy at having obtained so quickly such a great result. “Oh, do I know him? Yes; to my misfortune, to my eternal misfortune!”
And milady wrung her hands, as if she had reached the very paroxysm of grief.
Felton no doubt felt within himself that his strength was deserting him, and he took several steps toward the door; but the prisoner, whose eye was never off him, sprang after him and stopped him.
“Sir,” cried she, “be kind, be clement, listen to my prayer. That knife, which the baron’s fatal prudence 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 am not angry with you! My God! the idea of being angry with you, the only just, good, and compassionate being I have met with!—you, my saviour 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 honour.”
“To kill yourself?” cried Felton, in terror, forgetting to withdraw his hands from the hands of the prisoner—“to kill yourself?”
“I have said, 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 sufficiently genuine.”
Some one was heard walking in the corridor. Milady recognized Lord Winter’s step.
Felton recognized it also, and took a step toward the door.
Milady sprang forward.
“Oh, not a word,” said she, in a concentrated voice—“not a word to this man of all I have said to you, 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.
Felton gently pushed milady from him, and she sank into an easychair.
Lord Winter passed before the door without stopping, and they heard the sound of his footsteps in the distance.
Felton, as pale as death, remained some instants with his ear alert and listening; then, when the sound had entirely died away, 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 faded away in a direction opposite to Lord Winter’s—“ah, at length thou art mine!”