ng an effort to escape, and you are to be fired upon. If they kill
you, English justice will be under an obligation to me for having
saved it trouble. Ah! I see your features regain their calmness, your
countenance recovers its assurance. You are saying to yourself: 'Fifteen
days, twenty days? Bah! I have an inventive mind; before that is expired
some idea will occur to me. I have an infernal spirit. I shall meet with
a victim. Before fifteen days are gone by I shall be away from here.'
Ah, try it!"

Milady, finding her thoughts betrayed, dug her nails into her flesh to
subdue every emotion that might give to her face any expression except
agony.

Lord de Winter continued: "The officer who commands here in my absence
you have already seen, and therefore know him. He knows how, as you must
have observed, to obey an order--for you did not, I am sure, come from
Portsmouth hither without endeavoring to make him speak. What do you say
of him? Could a statue of marble have been more impassive and more mute?
You have already tried the power of your seductions upon many men, and
unfortunately you have always succeeded; but I give you leave to try
them upon this one. PARDIEU! if you succeed with him, I pronounce you
the demon himself."

He went toward the door and opened it hastily.

"Call Mr. Felton," said he. "Wait a minute longer, and I will introduce
him to you."

There followed between these two personages a strange silence, during
which the sound of a slow and regular step was heard approaching.
Shortly a human form appeared in the shade of the corridor, and the
young lieutenant, with whom we are already acquainted, stopped at the
threshold to receive the orders of the baron.

"Come in, my dear John," said Lord de Winter, "come in, and shut the
door."

The young officer entered.

"Now," said the baron, "look at this woman. She is young; she is
beautiful; she possesses all earthly seductions. Well, she is a monster,
who, at twenty-five years of age, has been guilty of as many crimes as
you could read of in a year in the archives of our tribunals. Her voice
prejudices her hearers in her favor; her beauty serves as a bait to
her victims; her body even pays what she promises--I must do her that
justice. She will try to seduce you, perhaps she will try to kill you.
I have extricated you from misery, Felton; I have caused you to be named
lieutenant; I once saved your life, you know on what occasion. I am for
you not o