The horse and servant belonging to De Winter were waiting for him at the door; he proceeded toward his very thoughtfully, looking behind him from time to him to the dark and silent frontage of the Louvre. It 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 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 ,” said De Winter to him, aside. “Let us pretend not to notice that he is watching us.”
 
And spurring on he into the of streets which led to his hotel, near the Marais, for having for so long a time lived near the Place Royale, Lord de Winter naturally returned to near his ancient .
 
The unknown spurred his horse to a .
 
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 ; 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 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 through the 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 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 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 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 her; my name would have secured me the estate, you have deprived me of it; you have 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 ; when one is a murderer, to recognize the man whom one has made an .”
 
These words produced a contrary effect to that which Mordaunt had anticipated. De Winter remembered the monster that Milady had been; he rose, and calm, restraining by the severity of his look the wild glance of the young man.
 
“You desire to this horrible secret?” said De Winter; “well, then, so be it. Know, then, what manner of woman it was for whom to-day you call me to account. That woman had, in all probability, poisoned my brother, and in order to inherit from me she was about to me in my turn. I have proof of it. What say you to that?”
 
“I say that she was my mother.”
 
“She caused the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham to be stabbed by a man who was, ere that, honest, good and pure. What say you to that crime, of which I have the proof?”
 
“She was my mother.”
 
“On our return to France she had a young woman who was attached to one of her opponents poisoned in the convent of the Augustines at Bethune. Will this crime persuade you of the justice of her punishment--for of all this I have the proofs?”
 
“She was my mother!” cried the young man, who uttered these three successive with constantly increasing force.
 
“At last, charged with murders, with debauchery, hated by every one and yet threatening still, like a panther thirsting for blood, she fell under the blows of men whom she had rendered desperate, though they had never done her the least injury; she met with judges whom her crimes had ; and that executioner you saw--that executioner who you say told you everything--that executioner, if he told you everything, told you that he leaped with joy in on her his brother’s shame and suicide. Depraved as a girl, adulterous as a wife, an sister, homicide, poisoner, by all who knew her, by every nation that had been visited by her, she died accursed by Heaven and earth.”
 
A which Mordaunt could not repress burst from his throat and his livid face became with blood; he his fists, sweat covered his face, his hair, like Hamlet’s, stood on end, and racked with fury he cried out:
 
“Silence, sir! she was my mother! Her crimes, I know them not; her , I know them not; her , I know them not. But this I know, that I had a mother, that five men leagued against one woman, murdered her by night--silently--like cowards. I know that you were one of them, my uncle, and that you cried louder than the others: ‘She must die.’ Therefore I warn you, and listen well to my words, that they may be upon your memory, never to be forgotten: this murder, which has robbed me of everything--this murder, which has deprived me of my name--this murder, which has impoverished me--this murder, which has made me , wicked, implacable--I shall summon you to account for it first and then those who were your , when I discover them!”
 
With in his eyes, at his mouth, and his fist extended, Mordaunt had advanced one more step, a threatening, terrible step, toward De Winter. The latter put his hand to his sword, and said, with the smile of a man who for thirty years has jested with death:
 
“Would you assassinate me, sir? Then I shall recognize you as my nephew, for you would be a son of such a mother.”
 
“No,” replied Mordaunt, forcing his features and the muscles of his body to resume their usual places and be calm; “no, I shall not kill you; at least not at this moment, for without you I could not discover the others. But when I have found them, then tremble, sir. I stabbed to the heart the headsman of Bethune, without mercy or pity, and he was the least guilty of you all.”
 
With these words the young man went out and the stairs with sufficient calmness to pass unobserved; then upon the lowest landing place he passed Tony, leaning over the balustrade, waiting only for a call from his master to mount to his room.
 
But De Winter did not call; crushed, enfeebled, he remained and with listening ear; then only when he had heard the step of the horse going away he fell back on a chair, saying:
 
“My God, I thank Thee that he knows me only.”
 
 
Well, madame,” said De Winter, when the queen had dismissed her attendants.
 
“Well, my lord, what I foresaw has come to pass.”
 
“What? does the cardinal refuse to receive the king? France refuse hospitality to an unfortunate prince? Ay, but it is for the first time, madame!”
 
“I did not say France, my lord; I said the cardinal, and the cardinal is not even a Frenchman.”
 
“But did you see the queen?”
 
“It is useless,” replied Henrietta, “the queen will not say yes when the cardinal says no. Are you not aware that this Italian directs everything, both indoors and out? And moreover, I should not be surprised had we been by Cromwell. He was embarrassed whilst speaking to me and yet quite firm in his determination to refuse. Then did you not observe the in the Palais Royal, the passing to and fro of busy people? Can they have received any news, my lord?”
 
“Not from England, madame. I made such haste that I am certain of not having been forestalled. I set out three days ago, passing through the Puritan army, and I took post horses with my servant Tony; the horses upon which we were mounted were bought in Paris. Besides, the king, I am certain, awaits your ’s reply before risking anything.”
 
“You will tell him, my lord,” resumed the queen, despairingly, “that I can do nothing; that I have suffered as much as himself--more than he has--obliged as I am to eat the bread of exile and to ask hospitality from false friends who smile at my tears; and as regards his royal person, he must sacrifice it generously and die like a king. I shall go and die by his side.”
 
“Madame, madame,” exclaimed De Winter, “your majesty abandons yourself to despair; and yet, perhaps, there still some hope.”
 
“No friends left, my lord; no other friends left in the wide world but yourself! Oh, God!” exclaimed the poor queen, raising her eyes to Heaven, “have You indeed taken back all the generous hearts that once existed in the world?”
 
“I hope not, madame,” replied De Winter, thoughtfully; “I once to you of four men.”
 
“What can be done with four?”
 
“Four , men can do much, assure yourself, madame; and those of whom I speak performed great things at one time.”
 
“And where are these four men?”
 
“Ah, that is what I do not know. It is twenty years since I saw them, and yet whenever I have seen the king in danger I have thought of them.”
 
“And these men were your friends?”
 
“One of them held my life in his hands and gave it to me. I know not whether he is still my friend, but since that time I have remained his.”
 
“And these men are in France, my lord?”
 
“I believe so.”
 
“Tell me their names; perhaps I may have heard them mentioned and might be able to aid you in finding them.”
 
“One of them was called the Chevalier d’Artagnan.”
 
“Ah, my lord, if I mistake not, the Chevalier d’Artagnan is of royal guards; but take care, for I fear that this man is devoted to the cardinal.”
 
“That would be a misfortune,” said De Winter, “and I shall begin to think that we are really .”
 
“But the others,” said the queen, who clung to this last hope as a shipwrecked man clings to the o............