“So it was for me alone you have taken the trouble to cross the Channel?”

“For you alone.”

“The deuce!  What tenderness, my sister!”

“But am I not your nearest relative?” demanded Milady, with a tone of the most touching ingenuousness.

“And my only heir, are you not?” said Lord de Winter in his turn, fixing his eyes on those of Milady.

Whatever command she had over herself, Milady could not help starting; and as in pronouncing the last words Lord de Winter placed his hand upon the arm of his sister, this start did not escape him.

In fact, the blow was direct and severe.  The first idea that occurred to Milady’s mind was that she had been betrayed by Kitty, and that she had recounted to the baron the selfish aversion toward himself of which she had imprudently allowed some marks to escape before her servant.  She also recollected the furious and imprudent attack she had made upon d’Artagnan when he spared the life of her brother.

“I do not understand, my Lord,” said she, in order to gain time and make her adversary speak out.  “What do you mean to say?  Is there any secret meaning concealed beneath your words?”

“Oh, my God, no!” said Lord de Winter, with apparent good nature.  “You wish to see me, and you come to England.  I learn this desire, or rather I suspect that you feel it; and in order to spare you all the annoyances of a nocturnal arrival in a port and all the fatigues of landing, I send one of my officers to meet you, I place a carriage at his orders, and he brings you hither to this castle, of which I am governor, whither I come every day, and where, in order to satisfy our mutual desire of seeing each other, I have prepared you a chamber.  What is there more astonishing in all that I have said to you than in what you have told me?”

“No; what I think astonishing is that you should expect my coming.”

“And yet that is the most simple thing in the world, my dear sister.  Have you not observed that the captain of your little vessel, on entering the roadstead, sent forward, in order to obtain permission to enter the port, a little boat bearing his logbook and the register of his voyagers?  I am commandant of the port.  They brought me that book.  I recognized your name in it.  My heart told me what your mouth has just confirmed—­that is to say, with what view you have exposed yourself to the dangers of a sea so perilous, or at least so troublesome at this moment—­and I sent my cutter to meet you.  You know the rest.”

Milady knew that Lord de Winter lied, and she was the more alarmed.

“My brother,” continued she, “was not that my Lord Buckingham whom I saw on the jetty this evening as we arrived?”

“Himself.  Ah, I can understand how the sight of him struck you,” replied Lord de Winter.  “You came from a country where he must be very much talked of, and I know that his armaments against France greatly engage the attention of your friend the cardinal.”