Means for Classical Tragedy — The Three Musketeers

Milady finishes the tale she has been feeding Felton. After three days without food, she says, a masked man she knew by step and voice brought a masked executioner and branded her shoulder with a red-hot iron. She opens her robe and shows him the mark. He sees a fleur-de-lis, the French brand, and she calls that the real infamy: an English mark she could have appealed, a French one she cannot. He falls to his knees, kisses her hand and then her feet. She reads love in his eyes. He no longer loves her. He adores her.

When he can speak, he wants the name of the true executioner. She will not say it until he shouts it himself: Buckingham, ravager of England and betrayer of true believers. Felton vows he does not fear the duke and will not spare him. She then fits Lord de Winter into the story as the affianced husband who believed her, rode for Buckingham Palace too late, married her, and died a week before the duke returned, leaving her his heir. The younger brother, she says, believed Buckingham because the inheritance was in it, arrested her, and will exile her among the infamous the day after tomorrow. She asks for the knife. Felton refuses death and promises they will live and die together.

A knock at the door breaks the kiss. The sentinel had no key. Lord de Winter arrives in his chamber gown, laughing that this is the last act and that no blood will flow. Milady stabs herself to prove courage. The knife slides on her steel busk and only cuts between flesh and ribs, but the robe blooms red and she swoons. Felton snatches the knife. The baron calls her a demon, sends Felton out, and still, because the wound might be serious, dispatches a mounted man for a physician. Felton, obeying, puts the knife into his bosom as he goes.