What Took Place at Portsmouth, 23 August 1628 — The Three Musketeers

Felton leaves Milady as a brother going for a walk, kissing her hand. His body looks calm. His eyes burn, his teeth are clenched, and his speech is short and dry. In the boat he keeps his face toward the sloop. Once the mast drops out of sight he runs for Portsmouth, half a league off in the morning haze, with a forest of masts beyond the town. On the road he stacks two years of Puritan charges against Buckingham beside the private crimes Milady has named. Love acts as a magnifying glass: the hidden man looks worse than the public one. He thinks of the woman he left behind, and the walk heats his blood until he is above ordinary feeling.

He reaches the Admiralty at eight, dusty and purple, and gets past the sentinel with a pressing message from Lord de Winter. In the vestibule another dusty rider arrives on a foundered post horse and will give no name. Patrick, the duke's lackey, prefers the man who comes from the baron's friend and makes the stranger wait. Felton is led past the La Rochelle deputies to a closet where Buckingham, just out of the bath, is changing a gold robe for a blue velvet doublet sewn with pearls. Felton presents the embarkation order for Charlotte Backson. The duke knows the name is false and knows it is Milady. He will sign rather twice than once. He calls transportation a favour and says Tyburn would be justice. Felton pleads, then bars the door, then stands between Buckingham and the silver bell. He demands a liberation order for a woman he says the duke dishonoured. Buckingham calls for Patrick and springs for his sword. Felton already has the knife from Milady's wound open in his bosom.

Patrick enters crying that a letter from France has come. Buckingham forgets everything. Felton drives the knife in to the handle. On the stairs Lord de Winter, who found a rope ladder and an empty room at seven and rode without a saddle, seizes the bloody lieutenant and cries that he is too late by a minute. Laporte, the queen's cloak bearer, is the man who was made to wait. Dying, Buckingham asks only what she wrote. Anne begs him to halt the armaments, warns that his life is menaced, and still loves him. He has Laporte pack the diamond-stud casket, her pearl cipher, and the smoking knife, then slips to the floor. The surgeon, fetched from the admiral's ship, says all is useless. On the terrace Felton tells de Winter he killed the duke because he was twice refused a captaincy. Then he sees, where another man would see a gull, Milady's sloop already bound for France. It wants ten minutes to nine. She had weighed at the cannon and left an hour and a half early. Felton goes pale, names it God's will, and cannot take his eyes off the sail. De Winter swears the accomplice is not saved and goes straight to the port.