inal, to claim her revenge.

_IV.--The Doom of Milady_

Milady accomplished the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham at
Portsmouth, and Richelieu was relieved of the fear of English
intervention at La Rochelle.

But the doom of Milady was at hand.

The king, weary of the siege, had gone to spend a few days quietly at
St. Germains, taking for an escort only twenty of the musketeers, and at
Paris the four friends had obtained from M. de Treville a few days'
leave of absence.

Aramis had discovered the convent where Madame Bonacieux was confined;
it was at Bethune, and thither the musketeers hastened. Unfortunately,
Milady reached Bethune first. She had come there to await the cardinal's
orders, and having ingratiated herself with the abbess, learnt that
D'Artagnan was on his way with an order from the queen to take Madame
Bonacieux to Paris. Milady immediately dispatched a messenger to the
cardinal, and at the very moment when the musketeers were at the front
entrance, she poured a powder into a glass of wine and bade Madame
Bonacieux drink.

"It is not the way I meant to avenge myself," said Milady, as she
hastily left the convent by the back gate, "but, _ma foi_, we do what we
must!"

The deadly poison did its work. Constance Bonacieux expired in
D'Artagnan's arms.

Then the four musketeers, joined by Lord de Winter, who had arrived from
England in hot pursuit of Milady, his sister-in-law, set out to overtake
the woman who had wrought so much evil.

They came up with Milady at a solitary house near the village of
Erquinheim.

The four servants of the musketeers guarded the house; Athos,
D'Artagnan, Aramis, Porthos, and De Winter entered.

"What do you want?" screamed Milady.

"We want Charlotte Backson, first called Countess de la Fere, and
afterwards Lady de Winter," said Athos. "M. D'Artagnan, it is for you to
accuse her first."

"I accuse this woman of having poisoned Constance Bonacieux, and of
having attempted to poison me, and I accuse her of having engaged
assassins to shoot me," said D'Artagnan.

"I accuse this woman of having procured the assassination of the Duke of
Buckingham," said Lord de Winter. "Moreover, my brother, who made her
his heiress, died suddenly of a strange disease."

"I married this woman and gave her my name and wealth, and found
afterwards she was branded as a felon," said Athos.

The musketeers and Lord de Winter passed sentence of death upon the
miserable wom