“Then,” said Felton, who became impatient, “say yourself, madame, what treatment you wish followed.”
“Eh, how can I tell? My God! I know that I suffer, that’s all. Give me anything you like, it is of little consequence.”
“Go and fetch Lord de Winter,” said Felton, tired of these eternal complaints.
“Oh, no, no!” cried Milady; “no, sir, do not call him, I conjure you. I am well, I want nothing; do not call him.”
She gave so much vehemence, such magnetic eloquence to this exclamation, that Felton in spite of himself advanced some steps into the room.
“He has come!” thought Milady.
“Meanwhile, madame, if you really suffer,” said Felton, “a physician shall be sent for; and if you deceive us–well, it will be the worse for you. But at least we shall not have to reproach ourselves with anything.”
Milady made no reply, but turning her beautiful head round upon her pillow, she burst into tears, and uttered heartbreaking sobs.
Felton surveyed her for an instant with his usual impassiveness; then, seeing that the crisis threatened to be prolonged, he went out. The woman followed him, and Lord de Winter did not appear.
“I fancy I begin to see my way,” murmured Milady, with a savage joy, burying herself under the clothes to conceal from anybody who might be watching her this burst of inward satisfaction.
Two hours passed away.
“Now it is time that the malady should be over,” said she; “let me rise, and obtain some success this very day. I have but ten days, and this evening two of them will be gone.”
In the morning, when they entered Milady’s chamber they had brought her breakfast. Now, she thought, they could not long delay coming to clear the table, and that Felton would then reappear.
Milady was not deceived. Felton reappeared, and without observing whether Milady had or had not touched her repast, made a sign that the table should be carried out of the room, it having been brought in ready spread.
Felton remained behind; he held a book in his hand.
Milady, reclining in an armchair near the chimney, beautiful, pale, and resigned, looked like a holy virgin awaiting martyrdom.
Felton approached her, and said, “Lord de Winter, who is a Catholic, like yourself, madame, thinking that the deprivation of the rites and ceremonies of your church might be painful to you, has consented that you should read every day the ordinary of your Mass; and here is a book which contains the ritual.”
At the manner in which Felton laid the book upon the little table near which Milady was sitting, at the tone in which he pronounced the two words, YOUR MASS, at the disdainful smile with which he accompanied them, Milady raised her head, and looked more attentively at the officer.
By that plain arrangement of the hair, by that costume of extreme simplicity, by the brow polished like marble and as hard and impenetrable, she recognized one of those gloomy Puritans she had so often met, not only in the court of King James, but in that of the King of France, where, in spite of the remembrance of the St. Bartholomew, they sometimes came to seek refuge.
She then had one of those sudden inspirations which only people of genius receive in great crises, in supreme moments which are to decide their fortunes or their lives.
Those two words, YOUR MASS, and a simple glance cast upon Felton, revealed to her all the importance of the reply she was about to make; but with that rapidity of intelligence which was peculiar to her, this reply, ready arranged, presented itself to her lips:
“I?” said she, with an accent of disdain in unison with that which she had remarked in the voice of the young officer, “I, sir? MY MASS? Lord de Winter, the corrupted Catholic, knows very well that I am not of his religion, and this is a snare he wishes to lay for me!”
“And of what religion are you, then, madame?” asked Felton, with an astonishment which in spite of the empire he held over himself he could not entirely conceal.
“I will tell it,” cried Milady, with a feigned exultation, “on the day when I shall have suffered sufficiently for my faith.”