posing he was at liberty, he was to rejoin her in
France, at the convent of the Carmelites at Bethune.

59 WHAT TOOK PLACE AT PORTSMOUTH AUGUST 23, 1628

Felton took leave of Milady as a brother about to go for a mere walk
takes leave of his sister, kissing her hand.

His whole body appeared in its ordinary state of calmness, only an
unusual fire beamed from his eyes, like the effects of a fever; his brow
was more pale than it generally was; his teeth were clenched, and his
speech had a short dry accent which indicated that something dark was at
work within him.

As long as he remained in the boat which conveyed him to land, he kept
his face toward Milady, who, standing on the deck, followed him with
her eyes. Both were free from the fear of pursuit; nobody ever came into
Milady's apartment before nine o'clock, and it would require three hours
to go from the castle to London.

Felton jumped onshore, climbed the little ascent which led to the top
of the cliff, saluted Milady a last time, and took his course toward the
city.

At the end of a hundred paces, the ground began to decline, and he could
only see the mast of the sloop.

He immediately ran in the direction of Portsmouth, which he saw at
nearly half a league before him, standing out in the haze of the
morning, with its houses and towers.

Beyond Portsmouth the sea was covered with vessels whose masts, like a
forest of poplars despoiled by the winter, bent with each breath of the
wind.

Felton, in his rapid walk, reviewed in his mind all the accusations
against the favorite of James I and Charles I, furnished by two years of
premature meditation and a long sojourn among the Puritans.

When he compared the public crimes of this minister--startling crimes,
European crimes, if so we may say--with the private and unknown crimes
with which Milady had charged him, Felton found that the more culpable
of the two men which formed the character of Buckingham was the one
of whom the public knew not the life. This was because his love, so
strange, so new, and so ardent, made him view the infamous and imaginary
accusations of Milady de Winter as, through a magnifying glass, one
views as frightful monsters atoms in reality imperceptible by the side
of an ant.

The rapidity of his walk heated his blood still more; the idea that he
left behind him, exposed to a frightful vengeance, the woman he loved,
or rather whom he adored as a saint, the emotion he had expe