Chat Between Brother and Sister — The Three Musketeers

While Lord de Winter shuts the door, closes a shutter, and draws a chair, Milady maps every chance. She knows him as a hunter and a player, not a man of intrigue. How did he seize her so fast? Athos overheard her talk with the cardinal, but she cannot believe he mined a trap this quickly. She would rather think Buckingham is paying her back for the two studs. She congratulates herself: a brother-in-law she can manage is better than a real enemy. She puts on cheer and says they should chat.

He asks why she has come back to England after swearing she never would. She says she came to see him, and him alone. He asks if she is not also his only heir. She starts. His hand is on her arm, so he feels it. He then tells a story she knows is a lie: the captain sent in a logbook; he is commandant of the port; he read her name and sent a cutter from tenderness. She is more alarmed. She asks if that was Buckingham on the jetty. He says it was, and that her friend the cardinal must talk of the duke often. He offers to see her every day. She asks if she is to stay forever. He mentions her first husband, still living in France, and says he can write for the size of her household. A cold sweat starts on her brow. She calls him drunk or mad and springs. He waits with a hand on his sword. He will defend himself even against her. He points to her left shoulder. There are no procurators here, he says, but judges who will send a bigamist to an executioner and make both shoulders alike. If she kills him, not a penny will pass to her. In fifteen or twenty days he sails for La Rochelle. The night before, a ship will take her to the southern colonies with a man who will blow her brains out if she tries to return.

He reads the rest of her thought aloud. Thick walls, a window over the sea, three iron gates, and a crew that will fire at a gesture. Fifteen days is time enough for an inventive mind, he says. Try it. The officer who brought her is marble. She may try her seductions on him. If she succeeds, she is the demon himself. He calls in John Felton, names her a monster, and reminds the young man that he pulled him from misery, made him lieutenant, and once saved his life. He asks Felton to swear, by his hopes of salvation, to keep her for the chastisement she has merited. Felton swears. She is not to leave the chamber, write, or speak to anyone but him. De Winter tells her to make her peace with God, for she is judged by men. A marine takes post in the corridor with an axe and a musket. She holds the crushed pose until she is sure no one watches through the keyhole. Then she lifts a face of menace and sits down to think.