hom the persecution of the emperors gave up in the circus to
the sanguinary sensuality of the populace. The brand disappeared; the
beauty alone remained.

"Pardon! Pardon!" cried Felton, "oh, pardon!"

Milady read in his eyes LOVE! LOVE!

"Pardon for what?" asked she.

"Pardon me for having joined with your persecutors."

Milady held out her hand to him.

"So beautiful! so young!" cried Felton, covering that hand with his
kisses.

Milady let one of those looks fall upon him which make a slave of a
king.

Felton was a Puritan; he abandoned the hand of this woman to kiss her
feet.

He no longer loved her; he adored her.

When this crisis was past, when Milady appeared to have resumed her
self-possession, which she had never lost; when Felton had seen her
recover with the veil of chastity those treasures of love which were
only concealed from him to make him desire them the more ardently, he
said, "Ah, now! I have only one thing to ask of you; that is, the name
of your true executioner. For to me there is but one; the other was an
instrument, that was all."

"What, brother!" cried Milady, "must I name him again? Have you not yet
divined who he is?"

"What?" cried Felton, "he--again he--always he? What--the truly guilty?"

"The truly guilty," said Milady, "is the ravager of England, the
persecutor of true believers, the base ravisher of the honor of so many
women--he who, to satisfy a caprice of his corrupt heart, is about to
make England shed so much blood, who protects the Protestants today and
will betray them tomorrow--"

"Buckingham! It is, then, Buckingham!" cried Felton, in a high state of
excitement.

Milady concealed her face in her hands, as if she could not endure the
shame which this name recalled to her.

"Buckingham, the executioner of this angelic creature!" cried Felton.
"And thou hast not hurled thy thunder at him, my God! And thou hast left
him noble, honored, powerful, for the ruin of us all!"

"God abandons him who abandons himself," said Milady.

"But he will draw upon his head the punishment reserved for the damned!"
said Felton, with increasing exultation. "He wills that human vengeance
should precede celestial justice."

"Men fear him and spare him."

"I," said Felton, "I do not fear him, nor will I spare him."

The soul of Milady was bathed in an infernal joy.

"But how can Lord de Winter, my protector, my father," asked Felton,
"possibly be mixed up with all this?"