“Oh,” said Milady, raising herself, “I defy you to find any tribunal which pronounced that infamous sentence against me. I defy you to find him who executed it.”
“Silence!” said a hollow voice. “It is for me to reply to that!” And the man in the red cloak came forward in his turn.
“What man is that? What man is that?” cried Milady, suffocated by terror, her hair loosening itself, and rising above her livid countenance as if alive.
All eyes were turned towards this man–for to all except Athos he was unknown.
Even Athos looked at him with as much stupefaction as the others, for he knew not how he could in any way find himself mixed up with the horrible drama then unfolded.
After approaching Milady with a slow and solemn step, so that the table alone separated them, the unknown took off his mask.
Milady for some time examined with increasing terror that pale face, framed with black hair and whiskers, the only expression of which was icy impassibility. Then she suddenly cried, “Oh, no, no!” rising and retreating to the very wall. “No, no! it is an infernal apparition! It is not he! Help, help!” screamed she, turning towards the wall, as if she would tear an opening with her hands.
“Who are you, then?” cried all the witnesses of this scene.
“Ask that woman,” said the man in the red cloak, “for you may plainly see she knows me!”
“The executioner of Lille, the executioner of Lille!” cried Milady, a prey to insensate terror, and clinging with her hands to the wall to avoid falling.
Every one drew back, and the man in the red cloak remained standing alone in the middle of the room.
“Oh, grace, grace, pardon!” cried the wretch, falling on her knees.
The unknown waited for silence, and then resumed, “I told you well that she would know me. Yes, I am the executioner of Lille, and this is my history.”
All eyes were fixed upon this man, whose words were listened to with anxious attention.
“That woman was once a young girl, as beautiful as she is today. She was a nun in the convent of the Benedictines of Templemar. A young priest, with a simple and trustful heart, performed the duties of the church of that convent. She undertook his seduction, and succeeded; she would have seduced a saint.
“Their vows were sacred and irrevocable. Their connection could not last long without ruining both. She prevailed upon him to leave the country; but to leave the country, to fly together, to reach another part of France, where they might live at ease because unknown, money was necessary. Neither had any. The priest stole the sacred vases, and sold them; but as they were preparing to escape together, they were both arrested.
“Eight days later she had seduced the son of the jailer, and escaped. The young priest was condemned to ten years of imprisonment, and to be branded. I was executioner of the city of Lille, as this woman has said. I was obliged to brand the guilty one; and he, gentlemen, was my brother!
“I then swore that this woman who had ruined him, who was more than his accomplice, since she had urged him to the crime, should at least share his punishment. I suspected where she was concealed. I followed her, I caught her, I bound her; and I imprinted the same disgraceful mark upon her that I had imprinted upon my poor brother.
“The day after my return to Lille, my brother in his turn succeeded in making his escape; I was accused of complicity, and was condemned to remain in his place till he should be again a prisoner. My poor brother was ignorant of this sentence. He rejoined this woman; they fled together into Berry, and there he obtained a little curacy. This woman passed for his sister.
“The Lord of the estate on which the chapel of the curacy was situated saw this pretend sister, and became enamoured of her–amorous to such a degree that he proposed to marry her. Then she quitted him she had ruined for him she was destined to ruin, and became the Comtesse de la Fere–“