was then that he saw a horseman, as it were, detach himself
from the wall and follow him at a little distance. In
leaving the Palais Royal he remembered to have observed a
similar shadow.
“Tony,” he said, motioning to his groom to approach.
“Here I am, my lord.”
“Did you remark that man who is following us?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Who is he?”
“I do not know, only he has followed your grace from the
Palais Royal, stopped at the Louvre to wait for you, and now
leaves the Louvre with you.”
“Some spy of the cardinal,” said De Winter to him, aside.
“Let us pretend not to notice that he is watching us.”
And spurring on he plunged into the labyrinth of streets
which led to his hotel, situated near the Marais, for having
for so long a time lived near the Place Royale, Lord de
Winter naturally returned to lodge near his ancient
dwelling.
The unknown spurred his horse to a gallop.
De Winter dismounted at his hotel and went up into his
apartment, intending to watch the spy; but as he was about
to place his gloves and hat on a table, he saw reflected in
a glass opposite to him a figure which stood on the
threshold of the room. He turned around and Mordaunt stood
before him.
There was a moment of frozen silence between these two.
“Sir,” said De Winter, “I thought I had already made you
aware that I am weary of this persecution; withdraw, then,
or I shall call and have you turned out as you were in
London. I am not your uncle, I know you not.”
“My uncle,” replied Mordaunt, with his harsh and bantering
tone, “you are mistaken; you will not have me turned out
this time as you did in London — you dare not. As for
denying that I am your nephew, you will think twice about
it, now that I have learned some things of which I was
ignorant a year ago.”
“And how does it concern me what you have learned?” said De
Winter.
“Oh, it concerns you very closely, my uncle, I am sure, and
you will soon be of my opinion,” added he, with a smile
which sent a shudder through the veins of him he thus
addressed. “When I presented myself before you for the first
time in London, it was to ask you what had become of my
fortune; the second time it was to demand who had sullied my
name; and this time I come before you to ask a question far
more terrible than any other, to say to you as God said to
Page 269
Dumas, Alexandre – Twenty Years After
the first murderer: `Cain, what hast thou done to thy
brother Abel?’ My lord, what have you done with your sister
— your sister, who was my mother?”
De Winter shrank back from the fire of those scorching eyes.
“Your mother?” he said.
“Yes, my lord, my mother,” replied the young man, advancing
into the room until he was face to face with Lord de Winter,
and crossing his arms. “I have asked the headsman of
Bethune,” he said, his voice hoarse and his face livid with
passion and grief. “And the headsman of Bethune gave me a
reply.”
De Winter fell back in a chair as though struck by a
thunderbolt and in vain attempted a reply.
“Yes,” continued the young man; “all is now explained; with
this key I open the abyss. My mother inherited an estate
from her husband, you have assassinated her; my name would
have secured me the paternal estate, you have deprived me of
it; you have despoiled me of my fortune. I am no longer
astonished that you knew me not. I am not surprised that you
refused to recognize me. When a man is a robber it is hard
to call him nephew whom he has impoverished; when one is a
murderer, to recognize the man whom one has made an orphan.”
These words produced a contrary effect to that which
Mordaunt had anticipated. De Winter remembered the monster
that Milady had been; he rose, dignified and calm,
restraining by the severity of his look the wild glance of