one?"

"I can relate to you, day by day, your actions from your entrance to the
service of the cardinal to this evening."

A smile of incredulity passed over the pale lips of Milady.

"Listen! It was you who cut off the two diamond studs from the shoulder
of the Duke of Buckingham; it was you had the Madame Bonacieux carried
off; it was you who, in love with de Wardes and thinking to pass the
night with him, opened the door to Monsieur d'Artagnan; it was you who,
believing that de Wardes had deceived you, wished to have him killed by
his rival; it was you who, when this rival had discovered your infamous
secret, wished to have him killed in his turn by two assassins, whom
you sent in pursuit of him; it was you who, finding the balls had missed
their mark, sent poisoned wine with a forged letter, to make your victim
believe that the wine came from his friends. In short, it was you who
have but now in this chamber, seated in this chair I now fill, made an
engagement with Cardinal Richelieu to cause the Duke of Buckingham to be
assassinated, in exchange for the promise he has made you to allow you
to assassinate d'Artagnan."

Milady was livid.

"You must be Satan!" cried she.

"Perhaps," said Athos; "But at all events listen well to this.
Assassinate the Duke of Buckingham, or cause him to be assassinated--I
care very little about that! I don't know him. Besides, he is an
Englishman. But do not touch with the tip of your finger a single hair
of d'Artagnan, who is a faithful friend whom I love and defend, or I
swear to you by the head of my father the crime which you shall have
endeavored to commit, or shall have committed, shall be the last."

"Monsieur d'Artagnan has cruelly insulted me," said Milady, in a hollow
tone; "Monsieur d'Artagnan shall die!"

"Indeed! Is it possible to insult you, madame?" said Athos, laughing;
"he has insulted you, and he shall die!"

"He shall die!" replied Milady; "she first, and he afterward."

Athos was seized with a kind of vertigo. The sight of this creature,
who had nothing of the woman about her, recalled awful remembrances. He
thought how one day, in a less dangerous situation than the one in which
he was now placed, he had already endeavored to sacrifice her to his
honor. His desire for blood returned, burning his brain and pervading
his frame like a raging fever; he arose in his turn, reached his hand to
his belt, drew forth a pistol, and cocked it.

Milady, pale as a co