paper; but her eye rapidly ran from line to line, and she stopped not
till she reached the end. While she read, her face alternately flushed
and paled, her eyes dilated, her lips parted; and before she finished
it, there came over all a look of the most unutterable horror. It
dropped from her powerless fingers as she finished; and she sank back in
her chair with such a ghastly paleness, that it seemed absolutely like
the lividness of death.
A sudden and startling noise awoke her from her trance of horror--some
one trying to get in at the window! The chill of terror it sent through
every vein acted as a sort of counter-irritant to the other feeling,
and she sprang from her chair and turned her face fearfully toward the
sounds. But in all her terror she did not forget the mysterious sheet of
foolscap, which lay, looking up at her, on the floor; and she snatched
it up, and thrust it and the casket out of sight. Still the sounds went
on, but softly and cautiously; and at intervals, as if the worker were
afraid of being heard. Leoline went back, step by step, to the other
extremity of the room, with her eyes still fixed on the window, and on
her face a white terror, that left her perfectly colorless.
Who could it be? Not Count L'Estrange, for he would surely not need
to enter his own house like a burglar--not Sir Norman Kingsley, for he
could certainly not find out her abduction and her prison so soon, and
she had no other friends in the whole wide world to trouble themselves
about her. There was one, but the idea of ever seeing her again was so
unspeakably dreadful, that she would rather have seen the most horrible
spectre her imagination could conjure up, than that tall, graceful,
rich-robed form.
Still the noises perseveringly continued; there was the sound of
withdrawing bolts, and then a pale ray of moonlight shot between the
parted curtains, shoving the shutters had been opened. Whiter and whiter
Leoline grew, and she felt herself growing cold and rigid with mortal
fear. Softly the window was raised, a hand stole in and parted the
curtains, and a pale face and two great dark eyes wandered slowly round
the room, and rested at last on her, standing, like a galvanized corpse,
as far from the window as the wall would permit. The hand was lifted in
a warning gesture, as if to enforce silence; the window was raised still
higher, a figure, lithe and agile as a cat, sprang lightly into the
room, and standing with his back to her, re-closed the shutters, re-shut
the window, and re-drew the curtains, before taking the trouble to turn
round.
This discreet little manoeuvre, which showed her visitor was human, and
gifted with human prudence, re-assured Leoline a little; and, to judge
by the reverse of the medal, the nocturnal intruder was nothing
very formidable after all. But the stranger did not keep her long in
suspense; while she stood gazing at him, as if fascinated, he turned
round, stepped forward, took off his cap, made her a courtly bow,
and then straightening himself up, prepared, with great coolness, to
scrutinize and be scrutinized.
Well might they look at each other; for the two faces were perfectly the
same, and each one saw himself and herself as others saw them. There was
the same coal-black, curling hair; the same lustrous dark eyes; the
same clear, colorless complexion, the same delicate, perfect features;
nothing was different but the costume and the expression. That latter
was essentially different, for the young lady's betrayed amazement,
terror, doubt, and delight all at once; while the young gentleman's was
a grand, careless surprise, mixed with just a dash of curiosity.
He was the first to speak; and after they had stared at each other for
the space of five minutes, he described a graceful sweep with his hand,
and held forth in the following strain,
“I greatly fear, fair Leoline, that I have startled you by my sudden and
surprising entrance; and if I have been the cause of a moment's alarm
to one so perfectly beautiful, I shall hate myself for ever after. If I
could have got in any other way, rest assured I would not have risked my
neck and your peace of mind by such a suspicious means of ingress as the
window; but if you will take the trouble to notice, the door is thick,
and I am composed of too solid flesh to whisk through the keyhole; so I
had to make my appearance the best way I could.”
“Who are you?” faintly asked Leoline.
“Your friend, fair lady, and Sir Norman Kingsley's.”
Hubert looked to see Leoline start and blush, and was deeply gratified
to see her do both; and her whole pretty countenance became alive with
new-born hope, as if that name were a magic talisman of freedom and joy.
“What is your name, and who are you?” she inquired, in a breathless sort
of way, that made Hubert look at her a moment in calm astonishment.
“I have told you your friend; christened at some remote period, Hubert.
For further particulars, apply to the Earl of Rochester, whose page I
am.”
“The Earl of Rochester's page!” she repeated, in the same quick, excited
way, that surprised and rather lowered her in that good youth's opinion,
for giving way to any feelings so plebeian. “It is--it must be the
same!”
“I have no doubt of it,” said Hubert. “The same what?”
“Did you not come from France--from Dijon, recently?” went on Leoline,
rather inappositely, as it struck her hearer.
“Certainly I came from Dijon. Had I the honor of being known to you
there?”
“How strange! How wonderful!” said Leoline, with a paling cheek and
quickened breathing. “How mysterious those things turn out I Thank
Heaven that I have found some one to love at last!”
This speech, which was Greek, algebra, high Dutch, or thereabouts, to
Master Hubert, caused him to stare to such an extent, that when he
came to think of it afterward, positively shocked him. The two great,
wondering dark eyes transfixing her with so much amazement, brought
Leoline to a sense of her talking unfathomable mysteries, quite
incomprehensible to her handsome auditor. She looked at him with a
smile, held out her hand; and Hubert received a strange little electric
thrill, to see that her eyes were full of tears. He took the hand and
raised it to his lips, wondering if the young lady, struck by his good
looks, had conceived a rash and inordinate attack of love at first
sight, and was about to offer herself to him and discard Sir Norman for
ever. From this speculation, the sweet voice aroused him.
“You have told me who you are. Now, do you know who I am?”
“I hope so, fairest Leoline. I know you are the most beautiful lady in
England, and to-morrow will be called Lady Kingsley!”
“I am something more,” said Leoline, holding his hand between both hers,
and bending near him; “I am your sister!”
The Earl of Rochester's page must have had good blood in his veins; for
never was there duke, grandee, or peer of the realm, more radically
and unaffectedly nonchalant than he. To this unexpected announcement he
listened with most dignified and well-bred composure, and in his secret
heart, or rather vanity, more disappointed than otherwise, to find his
first solution of her tenderness a great mistake. Leoline held his hand
tight in hers, and looked with loving and tearful eyes in his face.
“Dear Hubert, you are my brother--my long-unknown brother, and I love
you with my whole heart!”
“Am I?” said Hubert. “I dare say I am, for they all say we look as much
alike as two peas. I am excessively delighted to hear it, and to know
that you love me. Permit me to embrace my new relative.”
With which the court page kissed Leoline with emphasis, while she
scarcely knew whether to laugh, cry, or be provoked at his composure.
On the whole, she did a little of all three, and pushed him away with a
halt pout.
“You insensible mortal! How can you stand there and hear that you have
found a sister with so much indifference?”
“Indifferent? Not I! You have no idea how wildly excited I am!” said
Hubert, in a voice not betokening the slightest emotion. “How did you
find it out, Leoline?”
“Never mind! I shall tell you that again. You don't doubt it, I hope?”
“Of course not! I knew from the first moment I set eyes on you, that if
you were not my sister, you ought to be! I wish you'd tell me all the
particulars, Leoline.”
“I shall do so as soon as I am out of this; but how can I tell you
anything here?”
“That's true!” said Hubert, reflectively. “Well, I'll wait. Now, don't
you wonder how I found you out, and came here?”
“Indeed I do. How was it, Hubert?”
“Oh, well, I don't know as I can altogether tell you; but you see, Sir
Norman Kingsley being possessed of an inspiration that something was
happening to you, came to your house a short time ago, and, as he
suspected, discovered that you were missing. I met him there,
rather depressed in his mind about it, and he told me--beginning the
conversation, I must say, in a very excited manner,” said Hubert,
parenthetically, as memory recalled the furious shaking he had
undergone--“and he told me he fancied you were abducted, and by one
Count L'Estrange. Now I had a hazy idea who Count L'Estrange was, and
where he would be most apt to take you to; and so I came here, and after
some searching, more inquiring, and a few unmitigated falsehoods (you'll
regret to hear), discovered you were locked up in this place, and
succeeded in getting in through the window. Sir Norman is waiting for
me in a state of distraction so now, having found you, I will go and
relieve his mind by reporting accordingly.”
“And leave me here?” cried Leoline, in affright, “and in the power of
Count L'Estrange? Oh! no, no! You must take me with you, Hubert!”
“My dear Leoline, it is quite impossible to do it without help, and
without a ladder. I will return to Sir Norman; and when the darkness
comes that precedes day-dawn, we will raise the ladder to your window,
and try to get you out. Be patient--only wait an hour or two, and then
you will be free.”
“But, O Hubert, where am I? What dreadful place it this?”
“Why, I do not know that this is a very dreadful place; and most people
consider it a sufficiently respectable house; but, still, I would rather
see my sister anywhere else than in it, and will take the trouble of
kidnapping her out of it as quickly as possible.”
“But, Hubert, tell me--do tell me, who is Count L'Estrange?” Hubert
laughed.
“Cannot, really, Leoline! at least, not until to-morrow, and you are
Lady Kingsley.”
“But, what if he should come here to-night?”
“I do not think there is much danger of that, but whether he does or
not, rest assured you shall be free to-morrow! At all events, it is
quite impossible for you to escape with me now; and even as it is, I
run the risk of being detected, and made a prisoner, myself. You must
be patient and wait, Leoline, and trust to Providence and your brother
Hubert!”
“I must, I suppose!” said Leoline, sighing, “and you cannot take me away
until day-dawn.”
“Quite impossible; and then all this drapery of yours will be ever so
much in the way. Would you object to garments like these?” pointing to
his doublet and hose. “If you would not, I think I could procure you a
fit-out.”
“But I should, though!” said Leoline, with spirit “and most decidedly,
too! I shall wear nothing of the kind, Sir Page!”
“Every one to her fancy!” said Hubert, with a French shrug, “and my
pretty sister shall have hers in spite of earth, air, fire, and water!
And now, fair Leoline, for a brief time, adieu, and au revoir!”
“You will not fail me!” exclaimed Leoline, earnestly, clasping her
hands.
“If I do, it shall be the last thing I will fail in on earth; for if I
am alive by to-morrow morning, Leoline shall be free!”
“And you will be careful--you will both be careful!”
“Excessively careful! Now then.”
The last two words were addressed to the window which he noiselessly
opened as he spoke. Leoline caught a glimpse of the bright free
moonlight, and watched him with desperate envy; but the next moment the
shutters were closed, and Hubert and the moonlight were both gone.
CHAPTER XIX. HUBERT'S WHISPER.
Sir Norman Kingsley's consternation and horror on discovering the dead
body of his friend, was only equalled by his amazement as to how he got
there, or how he came to be dead at all. The livid face, up turned to
the moonlight, was unmistakably the face of a dead man--it was no swoon,
no deception, like Leoline's; for the blue, ghastly paleness that marks
the flight of the soul from the body was stamped on every rigid feature.
Yet, Sir Norman could not realize it. We all know how hard it is to
realize the death of a friend from whom we have but lately parted in
full health and life, and Ormiston's death was so sudden. Why, it was
not quite two hours since they had parted in Leoline's house, and even
the plague could not carry off a victim as quickly as this.
“Ormiston! Ormiston!” he called, between grief and dismay, as he raised
him in his arms, with his hand over the stilled heart; but Ormiston
answered not, and the heart gave no pulsation beneath his fingers. He
tore open his doublet, as the thought of the plague flashed through his
mind, but no plague-spot was to be seen, and it was quite evident,
from the appearance of the face, that he had not died of the distemper,
neither was there any wound or mark to show that he had met his end
violently. Yet the cold, white face was convulsed, as if he had died in
throes of agony, the hands were clenched, till the nails sank into the
flesh; and that was the only outward sign or token that he had suffered
in expiring.
Sir Norman was completely at a loss, and half beside himself, with
a thousand conflicting feelings of sorrow, astonishment, and
mystification. The rapid and exciting events of the night had turned
his head into a mental chaos, as they very well might, but he still had
commonsense enough left to know that something must be done about this
immediately. He knew the best place to take Ormiston was to the nearest
apothecary's shop, which establishments were generally open, and filled,
the whole livelong night, by the sick and their friends. As he was
meditating whether or not to call the surly watchman to help him carry
the body, a pest-cart came, providentially, along, and the driver-seeing
a young man bending over a prostrate form-guessed at once what was the
matter, and came to a halt.
“Another one!” he said, coming leisurely up, and glancing at the
lifeless form with a very professional eye. “Well, I think there is room
for another one in the cart; so bear a hand, friend, and let us have him
out of this.”
“You are mistaken!” said Sir Norman sharply, “he has not died of the
plague. I am not even certain whether he is dead at all.”
The driver looked at Sir Norman, then stooped down and touched
Ormiston's icy face, and listened to hear him breathe. He stood up after
a moment, with some thing like a small laugh.
“If he's alive,” he said, turning to go, “then I never saw any one dead!
Good night, sir, I wish you joy when you bring him to.”
“Stay!” exclaimed the young man, “I wish you to assist me in bringing
him to yonder apothecary's shop, and you may have this for your pains.”
“This” proved to be a talisman of alacrity; for the man pocketed it, and
briskly laid hold of Ormiston by the feet, while Sir Norman wrapped his
cloak reverently about him and took him by the shoulders. In this style
his body was conveyed to the apothecary's shop which they found half
full of applicants for medicine, among whom their entrance with the
corpse produced no greater sensation than a momentary stare. The attire
and bearing of Sir Norman proving him to be something different from
their usual class of visitors, bringing one of the drowsy apprentices
immediately to his side, inquiring what were his orders.
“A private room, and your master's attendance directly,” was the
authoritative reply.
Both were to be had; the former, a hole in the wall behind the shop; the
latter, a pallid, cadaverous-looking person, with the air of one who had
been dead a week, thought better of it and rose again. There was a
long table in the aforesaid hole in the wall, bearing a strong family
likeness to a dissecting-table; upon which the stark figure was laid,
and the pest-cart driver disappeared. The apothecary held a mirror
close to the face; applied his ear to the pulse and heart; held a
pocket-mirror over his mouth, looked at it; shook his head; and set down
the candle with decision.
“The man is dead, sir!” was his criticism, “dead as a door nail! All the
medicine in the shop wouldn't kindle one spark of life in such ashes!”
“At least, try! Try something--bleeding for instance,” suggested Sir
Norman.
Again the apothecary examined the body, and again he shook his head
dolefully.
“It's no use, sir: but, if it will please, you can try.”
The right arm was bared; the lancet inserted, one or two black drops
sluggishly followed and nothing more.
“It's all a waste of time, you see,” remarked the apothecary, wiping his
dreadful little weapon, “he's as dead as ever I saw anybody in my life!
How did he come to his end, sir--not by the plague?”
“I don't know,” said Sir Norman, gloomily. “I wish you would tell me
that.”
“Can't do it, sir; my skill doesn't extend that far. There is no
plague-spot or visible wound or bruise on the person; so he must have
died of some internal complaint--probably disease of the heart.”
“Never knew him to have such a thing,” said Sir Norman, sighing. “It
is very mysterious and very dreadful, and notwithstanding all you have
said, I cannot believe him dead. Can he not remain here until morning,
at least?”
The starved apothecary looked at him out of a pair of hollow, melancholy
eyes.
“Gold can do anything,” was his plaintive reply.
“I understand. You shall have it. Are you sure you can do nothing more
for him?”
“Nothing whatever, sir; and excuse me, but there are customers in the
shop, and I must leave, sir.”
Which he did, accordingly; and Sir Norman was left alone with all that
remained of him who, two hours before, was his warm friend. He could
scarcely believe that it was the calm majesty of death that so changed
the expression of that white face, and yet, the longer he looked, the
more deeply an inward conviction assured him that it was so. He chafed
the chilling hands and face, he applied hartshorn and burnt feathers to
the nostrils, but all these applications, though excellent in their way,
could not exactly raise the dead to life, and, in this case, proved
a signal failure. He gave up his doctoring, at last, in despair, and
folding his arms, looked down at what lay on the table, and tried
to convince himself that it was Ormiston. So absorbed was he in the
endeavor, that he heeded not the passing moments, until it struck
him with a shock that Hubert might even now be waiting for him at the
trysting-place, with news of Leoline. Love is stronger than friendship,
stronger than grief, stronger than death, stronger than every other
feeling in the world; so he suddenly seized his hat, turned his back on
Ormiston and the apothecary's shop, and strode off to the place he had
quitted.
No Hubert was there, but two figures were passing slowly along in the
moonlight, and one of them he recognized, with an impulse to spring
at him like a tiger and strangle him. But he had been so shocked and
subdued by his recent discovery, that the impulse which, half an hour
before, would have been unhesitatingly obeyed, went for nothing, now;
and there was more of reproach, even, than anger in his voice, as he
went over and laid his hand on the shoulder of one of them.
“Stay!” he said. “One word with you, Count L'Estrange. What have you
done with Leoline!”
“Ah! Sir Norman, as I live!” cried the count wheeling round and lifting
his hat. “Give me good even--or rather, good morning--Kingsley, for St.
Paul's has long gone the midnight hour.”
Sir Norman, with his hand still on his shoulder, returned not the
courtesy, and regarding the gallant count with a stern eye.
“Where is Leoline?” he frigidly repeated.
“Really,” said the count, with some embarrassment, “you attack me so
unexpectedly, and so like a ghost or a highwayman--by the way I have a
word to say to you about highwaymen, and was seeking you to say it.”
“Where is Leoline?” shouted the exasperated young knight, releasing his
shoulder, and clutching him by the throat. “Tell me or, by Heaven! I'll
pitch you neck and heels into the Thames!”
Instantly the sword of the count's companion flashed in the moonlight,
and, in two seconds more, its blue blade would have ended the earthly
career of Sir Norman Kingsley, had not the count quickly sprang back,
and made a motion for his companion to hold.
“Wait!” he cried, commandingly, with his arm outstretched to each. “Keep
off! George, sheathe your sword and stand aside. Sir Norman Kingsley,
one word with you, and be it in peace.”
“There can be no peace between us,” replied that aggravated young
gentleman, fiercely “until you tell me what has become of Leoline.”
“All in good time. We have a listener, and does it not strike you our
conference should be private!”
“Public or private, it matters not a jot, so that you tell me what
you've done with Leoline,” replied Sir Norman, with whom it was evident
getting beyond this question was a moral and physical impossibility.
“And if you do not give an account of yourself, I'll run you through as
sure as your name is Count L'Estrange!”
A strange sort of smile came over the face of the count at this direful
threat, as if he fancied in that case, he was safe enough; but Sir
Norman, luckily, did not see it, and heard only the suave reply:
“Certainly, Sir Norman; I shall be delighted to do so. Let us stand over
there in the shadow of that arch; and, George, do you remain here within
call.”
The count blandly waved Sir Norman to follow, which Sir Norman did, with
much the mein of a sulky lion; and, a moment after, both were facing
each other within the archway.
“Well!” cried the young knight, impatiently; “I am waiting. Go on!”
“My dear Kingsley,” responded the count, in his easy way, “I think you
are laboring under a little mistake. I have nothing to go on about; it
is you who are to begin the controversy.”
“Do you dare to play with me?” exclaimed Sir Norman, furiously. “I tell
you to take care how you speak! What have you done with Leoline?”
“That is the fourth or fifth time that you've asked me that question,”
said the count, with provoking indifference. “What do you imagine I have
done with her?”
Sir Norman's feelings, which had been rising ever since their meeting,
got up to such a height at this aggravating question, that he gave vent
to an oath, and laid his hand on his sword; but the count's hand lightly
interposed before it came out.
“Not yet, Sir Norman. Be calm; talk rationally. What do you accuse me of
doing with Leoline?”
“Do you dare deny having carried her off?”
“Deny it? No; I am never afraid to father my own deeds.”
“Ah!” said Sir Norman grinding his teeth. “Then you acknowledge it?”
“I acknowledge it--yes. What next?”
The perfect composure of his tone fell like a cool, damp towel on the
fire of Sir Norman's wrath. It did not quite extinguish the flame,
however--only quenched it a little--and it still hissed hotly
underneath.
“And you dare to stand before me and acknowledge such an act?” exclaimed
Sir Norman, perfectly astounded at the cool assurance of the man.
“Verily, yea,” said the count, laughing. “I seldom take the trouble to
deny my acts. What next?”
“There is nothing next,” said Sir Norman, severely, “until we have come
to a proper understanding about this. Are you aware, sir, that that lady
is my promised bride?”
“No, I do not know that I am. On the contrary, I have an idea she is
mine.”
“She was, you mean. You know she was forced into consenting by yourself
and her nurse!”
“Still she consented; and a bond is a bond, and a promise a promise, all
the world over.”
“Not with a woman,” said Sir Norman, with stern dogmatism. “It is their
privilege to break their promise and change their mind sixty times an
hour, if they choose. Leoline has seen fit to do both, and has accepted
me in your stead; therefore I command you instantly to give her up!”
“Softly, my friend--softly. How was I to know all this?”
“You ought to have known it!” returned Sir Norman, in the same
dogmatical way; “or if you didn't, you do now; so say no more about it.
Where is she, I tell you?” repeated the young man, in a frenzy.
“Your patience one moment longer, until we see which of us has the best
right to the lady. I have a prior claim.”
“A forced one. Leoline does not care a snap far you--and she loves me.”
“What extraordinary bad taste!” said the count, thoughtfully. “Did she
tell you that?”
“Yes; she did tell me this, and a great deal more. Come--have done
talking, and tell me where she is, or I'll--”
“Oh, no, you wouldn't!” said the count, teasingly. “Since matters stand
in this light I'll tell you what I'll do. I acknowledge that I carried
off Leoline, viewing her as my promised bride, and have sent her to my
own home in the care of a trusty messenger, where I give you my word of
honor, I have not been since. She is as safe there, and much safer than
in her own house, until morning, and it would be a pity to disturb her
at this unseasonable hour. When the morning comes, we will both go to
her together--state our rival claims--and whichever one she decides on
accepting, can have her, and end the matter at once.”
The count paused and meditated. This proposal was all very plausible
and nice on the surface, but Sir Norman with his usual penetration and
acuteness, looked farther than the surface, and found a flaw.
“And how am I to know,” he asked, doubtingly, “that you will not go to
her to-night and spirit her off where I will never hear of either of you
again?”
“In the very best way in the world: we will not part company until
morning comes, are we at peace?” inquired the count, smiling and holding
out but hand.
“Until then, we will have to be, I suppose,” replied Sir Norman, rather
ungraciously taking the hand as if it were red-hot, and dropping
it again. “And we are to stand here and rail at each other, in the
meantime?”
“By no means! Even the most sublime prospect tires when surveyed too
long. There is a little excursion which I would like you to accompany me
on, if you have no objection.”
“Where to?”
“To the ruin, where you have already been twice to-night.”
Sir Norman stared.
“And who told you this fact, Sir Count?”
“Never mind; I have heard it. Would you object to a third excursion
there before morning?”
Again Sir Norman paused and meditated. There was no use in staying where
he was, that would bring him no nearer to Leoline, and nothing was to be
gained by killing the count beyond the mere transitory pleasure of
the thing. On the other hand, he had an intense and ardent desire
to re-visit the ruin, and learn what had become of Miranda--the only
draw-back being that, if they were found they would both be most
assuredly beheaded. Then, again, there was Hubert.
“Well,” inquired the count, as Sir Norman looked up.
“I have no objection to go with you to the ruin,” was the reply, “only
this; if we are seen there, we will be dead men two minutes after; and
I have no desire to depart this life until I have had that promised
interview with Leoline.”
“I have thought of that,” said the count, “and have provided for it. We
may venture in the lion's den without the slightest danger: all that is
required being your promise to guide us thither. Do you give it?”
“I do; but I expect a friend here shortly, and cannot start until he
comes.”
“If you mean me by that, I am here,” said a voice at his elbow; and,
looking round, he saw Hubert himself, standing there, a quiet listener
and spectator of the scene.
Count L'Estrange looked at him with interest, and Hubert, affecting not
to notice the survey, watched Sir Norman.
“Well,” was that individual's eager address, “were you successful?”
The count was still watching the boy so intently, that that most
discreet youth was suddenly seized with a violent fit of coughing, which
precluded all possibility of reply for at least five minutes; and Sir
Norman, at the same moment, felt his arm receive a sharp and warning
pinch.
“Is this your friend?” asked the count. “He is a very small one, and
seems in a bad state of health.”
Sir Norman, still under the influence of the pinch, replied by an
inaudible murmur, and looked with a deeply mystified expression, at
Hubert.
“He bears a strong resemblance to the lady we were talking of a moment
ago,” continued the count--“is sufficiently like her, in fact, to be her
brother; and, I see wears the livery of the Earl of Rochester.”
“God spare you your eye-sight!” said Sir Norman, impatiently. “Can
you not see, among the rest, that I have a few words to say to him in
private? Permit us to leave you for a moment.”
“There is no need to do so. I will leave you, as I have a few words to
say to the person who is with me.”
So saying the count walked away, and Hubert followed him with a most
curious look.
“Now,” cried Sir Norman, eagerly, “what news?”
“Good!” said the boy. “Leoline is safe!”
“And where?”
“Not far from here. Didn't he tell you?”
“The count? No--yes; he said she was at his house.”
“Exactly. That is where she is,” said Hubert, looking much relieved.
“And, at present, perfectly safe.”
“And did you see her?”
“Of course; and heard her too. She was dreadfully anxious to come with
me; but that was out of the question.”
“And how is she to be got away?”
“That I do not clearly see. We will have to bring a ladder, and there
will be so much danger, and so little chance of success, that, to me it
seems an almost hopeless task. Where did you meet Count L'Estrange?”
“Here; and he told me that he had abducted her, and held her a prisoner
in his own house.”
“He owned that did he? I wonder you were not fit to kill him?”
“So I was, at first, but he talked the matter over somehow.”
And hereupon Sir Norman briefly and quickly rehearsed the substance of
their conversation. Hubert listened to it attentively, and laughed as he
concluded.
“Well, I do not see that you can do otherwise, Sir Norman, and I
think it would be wise to obey the count for to-night, at least. Then
to-morrow--if things do not go on well, we can take the law in our own
hands.”
“Can we?” said Sir Norman, doubtfully, “I do wish you would tell me who
this infernal count is, Hubert, for I am certain you know.”
“Not until to-morrow--you shall know him then.”
“To-morrow! to-morrow!” exclaimed Sir Norman, disconsolately.
“Everything is postponed until to-morrow! Oh, here comes the count back
again. Are we going to start now, I wonder?”
“Is your friend to accompany us on our expedition?” inquired the count,
standing before them. “It shall be quite as you say, Mr. Kingsley.”
“My friend can do as he pleases. What do you say, Hubert?”
“I should like to go, of all things, if neither of you have any
objections.”
“Come on, then,” said the count, “we will find horses in readiness a
short distance from this.”
The three started together, and walked on in silence through several
streets, until they reached a retired inn, where the count's recent
companion stood, with the horses. Count L'Estrange whispered a few words
to him, upon which he bowed and retired; and in an instant they were all
in the saddle, and galloping away.
The journey was rather a silent one, and what conversation there was,
was principally sustained by the count. Hubert's usual flow of pertinent
chat seemed to have forsaken him, and Sir Norman had so many other
things to think of--Leoline, Ormiston, Miranda, and the mysterious count
himself--that he felt in no mood for talking. Soon, they left the city
behind them; the succeeding two miles were quickly passed over, and
the “Golden Crown,” all dark and forsaken, now hove in sight. As they
reached this, and cantered up the road leading to the ruin, Sir Norman
drew rein, and said:
“I think our best plan would be, to dismount, and lead our horses the
rest of the way, and not incur any unnecessary danger by making a noise.
We can fasten them to these trees, where they will be at hand when we
come out.”
“Wait one moment,” said the count, lifting his finger with a listening
look. “Listen to that!”
It was a regular tramp of horses' hoofs, sounding in the silence like a
charge of cavalry. While they looked, a troop of horsemen came galloping
up, and came to a halt when they saw the count.
No words can depict the look of amazement Sir Norman's face wore;
but Hubert betrayed not the least surprise. The count glanced at his
companions with a significant smile, and riding back, held a brief
colloquy with him who seemed the leader of the horsemen. He rode up to
them, smiling still, and saying, as he passed,
“Now then, Kingsley; lead on, and we will follow!”
“I go not one step further,” said Sir Norman, firmly, “until I know who
I am leading. Who are you, Count L'Estrange?”
The count looked at him, but did not answer. A warning hand--that of
Hubert--grasped Sir Norman's arm; and Hubert's voice whispered hurriedly
in his ear:
“Hush, for God's sake! It is the king!”
CHAPTER XX. AT THE PLAGUE-PIT.
The effect of the whisper was magical. Everything that had been dark
before, became clear as noonday; and Sir Norman sat absolutely astounded
at his own stupidity in not having found it out for himself before.
Every feature, notwithstanding the disguise of wig and beard, became
perfectly familiar; and even through the well-assumed voice, he
recognized the royal tones. It struck him all at once, and with it the
fact of Leoline's increased danger. Count L'Estrange was a formidable
rival, but King Charles of England was even more formidable.
Thought is quick--quicker than the electric telegraph or balloon
traveling; and in two seconds the whole stated things, with all the
attendant surprises and dangers, danced before his mind's eye like a
panorama; and he comprehended the past, the present, and the future,
before Hubert had uttered the last word of his whisper. He turned his
eyes, with a very new and singular sensation, upon the quondam
count, and found that gentlemen looking very hard at him, with, a
preternaturally grave expression of countenance. Sir Norman knew well as
anybody the varying moods of his royal countship, and, notwithstanding
his general good nature, it was not safe to trifle with him at all
times; so he repressed every outward sign of emotion whatever, and
resolved to treat him as Count L'Estrange until he should choose to sail
under his own proper colors.
“Well,” said the count, with unruffled eagerness, “and so you decline to
go any further Sir Norman?”
Hubert's eye was fixed with a warning glance upon him, and Sir Norman
composedly answered
“No, count; I do not absolutely decline; but before I do go any further,
I should like to know by what right do you bring all these men here, and
what are your intentions in so doing.”
“And if I refuse to answer?”
“Then I refuse to move a step further in the business!” said Sir Norman,
with decision.
“And why, my good friend? You surely can have no objection to anything
that can be done against highwaymen and cut-throats.”
“Right! I have no objections, but others may.”
“Whom do you mean by others?”
“The king, for instance. His gracious majesty is whimsical at times; and
who knows that he may take it into his royal head to involve us somehow
with them. I know the adage, 'put not your trust in princes.'”
“Very good,” said the count, with a slight and irrepressible smile;
“your prudence is beyond all praise! But I think, in this matter I may
safely promise to stand between you and the king's wrath. Look at those
horsemen beyond you, and see if they do not wear the uniform of his
majesty's own body-guard.”
Sir Norman looked, and saw the dazzling of their splendid equipments
glancing and glistening in the moonbeams.
“I see. Then you have the royal permission for all this?”
“You have said it. Now, most scrupulous of men, proceed!”
“Look there!” exclaimed Hubert, suddenly pointing to a corner of the
rain. “Someone has seen us, and is going now to give the alarm.”
“He shall miss it, though!” said Sir Norman, detecting, at the same
instant, a dark figure getting through the broken doorway; and striking
spurs into his horse, he was instantaneously beside it, out of the
saddle, and had grasped the retreater by the shoulder.
“By your leave!” exclaimed Sir Norman. “Not quite so fast! Stand out
here in the moonlight, until I see who you are.”
“Let me go!” cried the man, grappling with his opponent. “I know who you
are, and I swear you'll never see moonlight or sunlight again, if you do
not instantly let me go.”
Sir Norman recognized the voice with a perfect shout of delight.
“The duke, by all that's lucky! O, I'll let you go: but not until the
hangman gets hold of you. Villain and robber, you shall pay for your
misdeeds now!”
“Hold!” shouted the commanding voice of Count L'Estrange. “Cease, Sir
Norman Kingsley! there is no time, and this is no person for you to
scoff with. He is our prisoner, and shall show us the nearest way into
this den of thieves. Give me your sword, fellow, and be thankful I do
not make you shorter by a head with it.”
“You do not know him!” cried Sir Norman; in vivid excitement. “I tell
you this is the identical scoundrel who attempted to rob and murder you
a few hours ago.”
“So much the better! He shall pay for that and all his other
shortcomings, before long! But, in the meantime, I order him to bring us
before the rest of this outlawed crew.”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said the duke, sullenly.
“Just as you please. Here, my men, two of you take hold of this
scoundrel, and dispatch him at once.”
The guard had all dismounted; and two of them came forward with edifying
obedience, to do as they were told.
The effect upon the duke was miraculous. Instantly he started up, with
an energy perfectly amazing:
“No, no, no! I'll do it! Come this way, gentlemen, and I'll bring you
direct into their midst. O good Lord! whatever will become of us?”
This last frantic question was addressed to society in general, but Sir
Norman felt called upon to answer:
“That's very easily told, my man. If you and the rest of your titled
associates receive your deserts (as there is no doubt you will) from the
gracious hand of our sovereign lord, the king, the strongest rope and
highest gallows at Tyburn will be your elevated destiny.”
The duke groaned dismally, and would have come to a halt to beg mercy on
the spot, had not Hubert given him a probe in, the ribs with the point
of his dagger, that sent him on again, with a distracted howl.
“Why, this is a perfect Hades!” said the count, as he stumbled after, in
the darkness. “Are you sure we are going right, Kingsley?”
The inquiry was not unnatural, for the blackness was perfectly
Tartarian, and the soldiers behind were knocking their tall shins
against all sorts of obstacles as they groped blindly along, invoking
from them countless curses, not loud, but deep.
“I don't know whether we are or not,” said Sir Norman significantly;
“only, God help him if we're not! Where are you taking us to, you
black-looking bandit?”
“I give you my word of honor, gentlemen,” said an imploring voice in
the darkness, “that I'm leading you, by the nearest way, to the Midnight
Court. All I ask of you in return is, that you will let me enter before
you; for if they find that I lead you in, my life will not be worth a
moment's purchase.”
“As if it ever was worth it,” said Sir Norman, contemptuously. “On with
you, and be thankful I don't save your companions the trouble, by making
an end of you where you stand.”
“Rush along, old fellow,” suggested Hubert, giving him another poke with
his dagger, that drew forth a second doleful howl.
Notwithstanding the darkness, Sir Norman discovered that they were being
led in a direction exactly opposite that by which he had previously
effected an entrance. They were in the vault, he knew, by the darkness,
though they had descended no staircase, and he was just wondering
if their guide was not meditating some treachery by such a circuitous
route, when suddenly a tumult of voices, and uproar, and confusion, met
his ear. At the same instant, their guide opened a door, revealing a
dark passage, illuminated by a few rays of light, and which Sir Norman
instantly recognized as that leading to the Black Chamber. Here again
the duke paused, and turned round to them with a wildly-imploring face.
“Gentlemen, I do conjure you to let me enter before you do! I tell you
they will murder me the very instant they discover I have led you here!”
“That would be a great pity!” said the count; “and the gallows will be
cheated of one of its brightest ornaments! That is your den of thieves,
I suppose, from which all this uproar comes?”
“It is. And as I have guided you safely to it, surely I deserve this
trifling boon.”
“Trifling, do you call it,” interposed Sir Norman, “to let you make
your escape, as you most assuredly will do the moment you are out of our
sight! No, no; we are too old birds to be caught with such chaff; and
though the informer always gets off scot-free, your services deserve no
such boon; for we could have found our way without your help! On with
you, Sir Robber; and if your companions do kill you, console yourself
with the thought that they have only anticipated the executioner by a
few days!”
With a perfectly heart-rending groan, the unfortunate duke walked on;
but when they reached the archway directly before the room, he came to
an obstinate halt, and positively refused to go a step farther. It was
death, anyway, and he resisted with the courage of desperation,
feeling he might as well die there as go in and be assassinated by his
confederates, and not even the persuasive influence of Hubert's dagger
could prevail on him to budge an inch farther.
“Stay, then!” said the count, with perfect indifference. “And, soldiers,
see that he does not escape! Now, Kingsley, let us just have a glimpse
of what is going on within.”
Though the party had made considerable noise in advancing, and had
spoken quite loudly in their little animated discussion with the duke,
so great was the turmoil and confusion within, that it was not heeded,
or even heard. With very different feelings from those with which he had
stood there last, Sir Norman stepped forward and stood beside the count,
looking at the scene within.
The crimson court was in a state of “most admired disorder,” and the
confusion of tongues was equal to Babel. No longer were they languidly
promenading, or lolling in the cushioned chairs; but all seemed running
to and fro in the wildest excitement, which the grandest duke among
them seemed to share equally with the terrified white sylphs. Everybody
appeared to be talking together, and paying no attention whatever to
the sentiments of their neighbors. One universal centre of union alone
seemed to exist, and that was the green, judicial table near the throne,
upon which, while all tongues ran, all eyes turned. For some minutes,
neither of the beholders could make out why, owing to the crowd
(principally of the ladies) pressing around it; but Sir Norman guessed,
and thrilled through with a vague sensation of terror, lest it should
prove to be the dead body of Miranda. Skipping in and out among the
females he saw the dwarf, performing a sort of war dance of rage and
frenzy; twining both hands in his wig, as if he would have torn it out
by the roots, and anon tearing at somebody else's wig, so that everybody
backed off when he came near them.
“Who is that little fiend?” inquired the count; “and what have they got
there at the and of the room, pray?”
“That little fiend is the ringleader here, and is entitled Prince
Caliban. Regarding your other question,” said Sir Norman, with a faint
thrill, “there was a table there when I saw it last, but I am afraid
there is something worse now.”
“Could ever any mortal conceive of such a scene,” observed the count
to himself; “look at that little picture of ugliness; how he hops about
like a dropsical bull-frog. Some of those women are very pretty, too,
and outshine more than one court-beauty that I have seen. Upon my word,
it is the most extraordinary spectacle I ever heard of. I wonder what
they've got that's so attractive down there?”
At the same moment, a loud voice within the circle abruptly exclaimed
“She revives, she revives! Back, back, and give her air!”
Instantly, the throng swayed and fell back; and the dwarf, with a sort
of yell (whether of rage or relief, nobody knew), swept them from side
to side with a wave of his long arms, and cleared a wide vacancy for
his own especial benefit. The action gave the count an opportunity
of gratifying his curiosity. The object of attraction was now plainly
visible. Sir Norman's surmises had been correct. The green table of the
parliament-house of the midnight court had been converted, by the aid of
cushions and pillows, into an extempore couch; and half-buried in their
downy depths lay Miranda, the queen. The sweeping robe of royal purple,
trimmed with ermine, the circlets of jewels on arms, bosom, and head,
she still wore, and the beautiful face was whiter than fallen snow.
Yet she was not dead, as Sir Norman had dreaded; for the dark eyes were
open, and were fixed with an unutterable depth of melancholy on vacancy.
Her arms lay helplessly by her side, and someone, the court physician
probably, was bending over her and feeling her pulse.
As the count's eyes fell upon her, he started back, and grasped Sir
Norman's arm with consternation.
“Good heavens, Kingsley!” he cried; “it is Leoline, herself!”
In his excitement he had spoken so loud, that in the momentary silence
that followed the physician's direction, his voice had rung through the
room, and drew every eye upon them.
“We are seen, we are seen!” shouted Hubert, and as he spoke, a terrible
cry idled the room. In an instant every sword leaped from its scabbard,
and the shriek of the startled women rang appallingly out on the air.
Sir Norman drew his sword, too; but the count, with his eyes yet fixed
on Miranda, still held him by the arm, and excitedly exclaimed,
“Tell me, tell me, is it Leoline?”
“Leoline! No--how could it be Leoline? They look alike, that's all. Draw
your sword, count, and defend yourself; we are discovered, and they are
upon us!”
“We are upon them, you mean, and it is they who are discovered,” said
the count, doing as directed, and stepping boldly in. “A pretty hornet's
nest is this we have lit upon, if ever there was one.”
Side by side with the count, with a dauntless step and eye, Sir Norman
entered, too; and, at sight of him a burst of surprise and fury rang
from lip to lip. There was a yell of “Betrayed, betrayed!” and the
dwarf, with a face so distorted by fiendish fury that it was scarcely
human, made a frenzied rush at him, when the clear, commanding voice of
the count rang like a bugle blast through the assembly,
“Sheathe your swords, the whole of you, and yield yourselves prisoners.
In the king's name, I command you to surrender.”
“There is no king here but I!” screamed the dwarf, gnashing his teeth,
and fairly foaming with rage. “Die; traitor and spy! You have escaped me
once, but your hour is come now.”
“Allow me to differ from you,” said Sir Norman, politely, as he evaded
the blindly-frantic lunge of the dwarf's sword, and inserted an inch or
two of the point of his own in that enraged little prince's anatomy. “So
far from my hour having come--if you will take the trouble to reflect
upon it--you will find it is the reverse, and that my little friend's
brief and brilliant career is rapidly drawing to a close.”
At these bland remarks, and at the sharp thrust that accompanied them,
the dwarfs previous war-dance of anxiety was nothing to the horn-pipe
of exasperation he went through when Sir Norman ceased. The blood was
raining from his side, and from the point of his adversary's sword, as
he withdrew it; and, maddened like a wild beast at the sight of his own
blood, he screeched, and foamed, and kicked about his stout little legs,
and gnashed his teeth, and made grabs at his wig, and lashed the air
with his sword, and made such desperate pokes with it, at Sir Norman and
everybody else who came in his way, that, for the public good, the
young knight run him through the sword-arm, and, in spite of all his
distracted didos, captured him by the help of Hubert, and passed him
over to the soldiers to cheer and keep company with the duke.
This brisk little affair being over, Sir Norman had time to look about
him. It had all passed in so short a space, and the dwarf had been so
desperately frantic, that the rest had paused involuntarily, and were
still looking on. Missing the count, he glanced around the room, and
discovered him standing on Miranda's throne, looking over the company
with the cool air of a conqueror. Miranda, aroused, as she very well
might be by all this screaming and fighting, had partly raised herself
upon her elbow, and was looking wildly about her. As her eye fell on Sir
Norman, she sat fairly erect, with a cry of exultation and joy.
“You have come, you have come, as I knew you would,” she excitedly
cried, “and the hour of retribution is at hand!”
At the words of one who, a few moments before, they had supposed to be
dead, an awestruck silence fell; and the count, taking advantage of it,
waved his hand, and cried,
“Yield yourselves prisoners, I command you! The royal guards are
without; and the first of you who offers the slightest resistance will
die like a dog! Ho, guards! enter, and seize your prisoners!”
Quick as thought the room was full of soldiers! but the rest of the
order was easier said than obeyed. The robbers, knowing their doom
was death, fought with the fury of desperation, and a short, wild, and
terrible conflict ensued. Foremost in the melee was Sir Norman and the
count; while Hubert, who had taken possession of the dwarf's sword,
fought like a young lion. The shrieks of the women were heart-rending,
as they all fled, precipitately, into the blue dining-room; and,
crouching in corners, or flying distractedly about--true to their
sex--made the air resound with the most lamentable cries. Some five or
six, braver than the rest, alone remained; and more than one of these
actually mixed in the affray, with a heroism worthy a better cause.
Miranda, still sitting erect, and supported in the arms of a
kneeling and trembling sylph in white, watched the conflict with
terribly-exultant eyes, that blazed brighter and brighter with the lurid
fire of vengeful joy at every robber that fell.
“Oh, that I were strong enough to wield a sword!” was her fierce
aspiration every instant; “if I could only mix in that battle for five
minutes, I could die with a happy heart!”
Had she been able to wield a sword for five minutes, according to her
wish, she would probably have wielded it from beginning to end of the
battle; for it did not last much longer than that. The robbers fought
with fury and ferocity; but they had been taken by surprise, and were
overpowered by numbers, and obliged to yield.
The crimson court was indeed crimson now; for the velvet carpeting was
dyed a more terrible red, and was slippery with a rain of blood! A score
of dead and dying lay groaning on the ground; and the rest, beaten and
bloody, gave up their swords and surrendered.
“You should have done this at first!” said the count, coolly wiping his
blood-stained weapon, and replacing it in its sheath; “and, by so doing,
saved some time and more bloodshed. Where are all the fair ladies,
Kingsley, I saw here when we entered first?”
“They fled like a flock of frightened deer,” said Hubert, taking it upon
himself to answer, “through yonder archway when the fight commenced. I
will go in search of them if you like.”
“I am rather at a loss what to do with them,” said the count,
half-laughing. “It would be a pity to bring such a cavalcade of pretty
women into the city to die of the plague. Can you suggest nothing, Sir
Norman?”
“Nothing, but to leave then here to take care of themselves, or let them
go free.”
“They would be a great addition to the court at Whitehall,” suggested
Hubert, in his prettiest tone, “and a thousand times handsomer than
half the damsels therein. There, for instance, is one a dozen timer more
beautiful than Mistress Stuart herself!”
Leaning, in his nonchalant way, on the hilt of his sword, he pointed to
Miranda, whose fiercely-joyful eyes were fixed with a glance that made
the three of them shudder, on the bloody floor and the heap of slain.
“Who is that?” asked the count, curiously. “Why is she perched up there,
and why does she bear such an extraordinary resemblance to Leoline? Do
you know anything about her, Kingsley?”
“I know she is the wife of that unlovely little man, whose howls in
yonder passage you can hear, if you listen, and that she was the queen
of this midnight court, and is wounded, if not dying, now!”
“I never saw such fierce eyes before in a female head! One would think
she fairly exulted in this wholesale slaughter of her subjects.”
“So she does; and she hates both her husband and her subjects, with an
intensity you cannot conceive.”
“How very like royalty!” observed Hubert, in parenthesis. “If she were a
real queen, she could not act more naturally.”
Sir Norman smiled, and the count glanced at the audacious page,
suspiciously; but Hubert's face was touching to witness, in its innocent
unconsciousness. Miranda, looking up at the same time, caught the young
knight's eye, and made a motion for him to approach. She held out
both her hands to him as he came near, with the same look of dreadful
delight.
“Sir Norman Kingsley, I am dying, and my last words are in thanksgiving
to you for having thus avenged me!”
“Let me hope you have many days to live yet, fair lady,” said Sir
Norman, with the same feeling of repulsion he had experienced in the
dungeon. “I am sorry you have been obliged to witness this terrible
scene.”
“Sorry!” she cried, fiercely. “Why, since the first hour I remember at
all, I remember nothing that has given me such joy as what has passed
now; my only regret is that I did not see them all die before my eyes!
Sorry! I tell you I would not have missed it for ten thousand worlds!”
“Madame, you must not talk like this!” said Sir Norman, almost sternly.
“Heaven forbid there should exist a woman who could rejoice in bloodshed
and death. You do not, I know. You wrong yourself and your own nature in
saying so. Be calm, now; do not excite yourself. You shall come with us,
and be properly cared for; and I feel certain you have a long and happy
life before you yet.”
“Who are those men?” she said, not heeding him, “and who--ah, great
Heaven! What is that?”
In looking round, she had met Hubert face to face. She knew that that
face was her own; and, with a horror stamped on every feature that no
words can depict, she fell back, with a terrible scream and was dead!
Sir Norman was so shocked by the suddenness of the last catastrophe,
that, for some time, he could not realize that she had actually expired,
until he bent over her, and placed his ear to her lips. No breath was
there; no pulse stirred in that fierce heart--the Midnight Queen was
indeed dead!
“Oh, this is fearful!” exclaimed Sir Norman, pale and horrified.
“The sight of Hubert, and his wonderful resemblance to her, has
completed what her wound and this excitement began. Her last is breathed
on earth!”
“Peace be with her!” said the count, removing his hat, which, up to
the present, he had worn. “And now, Sir Norman, if we are to keep our
engagement at sunrise, we had better be on the move; for, unless I am
greatly mistaken, the sky is already grey with day-dawn.”
“What are your commands?” asked Sir Norman, turning away, with a sigh,
from the beautiful form already stiffening in death.
“That you come with me to seek out those frightened fair ones, who are
a great deal too lovely to share the fate of their male companions. I
shall give them their liberty to go where they please, on condition that
they do not enter the city. We have enough vile of their class there
already.”
Sir Norman silently followed him into the azure and silver saloon, where
the crowd of duchesses and countesses were “weeping and wringing their
hands,” and as white as so many pretty ghosts. In a somewhat brief and
forcible manner, considering his characteristic gallantry, the count
made his proposal, which, with feelings of pleasure and relief, was at
once acceded to; and the two gentlemen bowed themselves out, and left
the startled ladies.
On returning to the crimson court, he commanded a number of his soldiers
to remain and bury the dead, and assist the wounded; and then, followed
by the remainder and the prisoners under their charge, passed out, and
were soon from the heated atmosphere in the cool morning air. The moon
was still serenely shining, but the stars that kept the earliest hours
were setting, and the eastern sky was growing light with the hazy gray
of coming morn.
“I told you day-dawn was at hand,” said the count, as he sprang into his
saddle; “and, lo! in the sky it is gray already.”
“It is time for it!” said Sir Norman, as he, too, got into his seat;
“this has been the longest night I have ever known, and the most
eventful one of my life.”
“And the end is not yet! Leoline waits to decide between us!”
Sir Norman shrugged his shoulders.
“True! But I have little doubt what that decision will be! I presume you
will have to deliver up your prisoners before you can visit her, and I
will avail myself of the opportunity to snatch a few moments to fulfill
a melancholy duty of my own.”
“As you please. I have no objection; but in that case you will need some
one to guide you to the place of rendezvous; so I will order my private
attendant, yonder, to keep you in sight, and guide you to me when your
business is ended.”
The count had given the order to start, the moment they had left
the ruin, and the conversation had been carried on while riding at a
break-neck gallop. Sir Norman thanked him for his offer, and they rode
in silence until they reached the city, and their paths diverged; Sir
Norman's leading to the apothecary's shop where he had left Ormiston,
and the count's leading--he best knew where. George--the attendant
referred to--joined the knight, and leaving his horse in his care, Sir
Norman entered the shop, and encountered the spectral proprietor at the
door.
“What of my friend?” was his eager inquiry. “Has he yet shown signs of
returning consciousness?”
“Alas, no!” replied the apothecary, with a groan, that came wailing
up like a whistle; “he was so excessively dead, that there was no use
keeping him; and as the room was wanted for other purposes, I--pray, my
dear sir, don't look so violent--I put him in the pest-cart and had him
buried.”
“In the plague-pit!” shouted Sir Norman, making a spring at him; but the
man darted off like a ghostly flash into the inner room, and closed and
bolted the door in a twinkling.
Sir Norman kicked at it spitefully, but it resisted his every effort;
and, overcoming a strong temptation to smash every bottle in the shop,
he sprang once more into the saddle, and rode off to the plague-pit.
It was the second time within the last twelve hours he had stood there;
and, on the previous occasion, he who now lay in it, had stood by
his side. He looked down, sickened and horror-struck. Perhaps, before
another morning, he, too, might be there; and, feeling his blood run
cold at the thought, he was turning away, when some one came rapidly
up, and sank down with a moaning gasping cry on its very edge. That
shape--tall and slender, and graceful--he well knew; and, leaning over
her, he laid his hand on her shoulder, and exclaimed:
“La Masque!”
CHAPTER, XXI. WHAT WAS BEHIND THE MASK.
The cowering form rose up; but, seeing who it was, sank down again, with
its face groveling in the dust, and with another prolonged, moaning cry.
“Madame Masque!” he said, wonderingly; “what is this?”
He bent to raise her; but, with a sort of scream she held out her arms
to keep him back.
“No, no, no! Touch me not! Hate me--kill me! I have murdered your
friend!”
Sir Norman recoiled as if from a deadly serpent.
“Murdered him! Madame, in Heaven's name, what have you said?”
“Oh, I have not stabbed him, or poisoned him, or shot him; but I am
his murderer, nevertheless!” she wailed, writhing in a sort of gnawing
inward torture.
“Madame, I do not understand you at all! Surely you are raving when you
talk like this.”
Still moaning on the edge of the plague-pit, she half rose up, with both
hands clasped tightly over her heart, as if she would have held back
from all human ken the anguish that was destroying her,
“NO--no! I am not mad--pray Heaven I were! Oh, that they had strangled
me in the first hour of my birth, as they would a viper, rather than I
should have lived through all this life of misery and guilt, to end it
by this last, worst crime of all!”
Sir Norman stood and looked at her still with a dazed expression. He
knew well enough whose murderer she called herself; but why she did
so, or how she could possibly bring about his death, was a mystery
altogether too deep for him to solve.
“Madame, compose yourself, I beseech you, and tell me what you mean. It
is to my friend, Ormiston, you allude--is it not?”
“Yes--yes! surely you need not ask.”
“I know that he is dead, and buried in this horrible place; but why you
should accuse yourself of murdering him, I confess I do not know.”
“Then you shall!” she cried, passionately. “And you will wonder at it no
longer! You are the last one to whom the revelation can ever be made on
earth; and, now that my hours are numbered, it matters little whether it
is told or not! Was it not you who first found him dead?”
“It was I--yes. And how he came to his end, I have been puzzling myself
in vain to discover ever since.”
She rose up, drew herself to her full majestic height, and looked at him
with a terrible glance,
“Shall I tell you?”
“You have had no hand in it,” he answered, with a cold chill at the tone
and look, “for he loved you!”
“I have had a hand in it--I alone have been the cause of it. But for me
he would be living still!”
“Madame,” exclaimed Sir Norman, in horror.
“You need not look as if you thought me mad, for I tell you it is
Heaven's truth! You say right--he loved me; but for that love he would
be living now!”
“You speak in riddles which I cannot read. How could that love have
caused his death, since his dearest wishes were to be granted to-night?”
“He told you that, did he?”
“He did. He told me you were to remove your mask; and if, on seeing you,
he still loved you, you were to be his wife.”
“Then woe to him for ever having extorted such a promise from me! Oh,
I warned him again, and again, and again. I told him how it would be--I
begged him to desist; but no, he was blind, he was mad; he would rush on
his own doom! I fulfilled my promise, and behold the result!”
She pointed with a frantic gesture to the plague-pit, and wrung her
beautiful hands with the same moaning of anguish.
“Do I hear aright?” said Sir Norman, looking at her, and really doubting
if his ears had not deceived him. “Do you mean to say that, in keeping
your word and showing him your face, you have caused his death?”
“I do. I had warned him of it before. I told him there were sights too
horrible to look on and live, but nothing would convince him! Oh, why
was the curse of life ever bestowed upon such a hideous thing as I!”
Sir Norman gazed at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He had
thought, from the moment he saw her first, that there was something
wrong with her brain, to make her act in such a mysterious, eccentric
sort of way; but he had never positively thought her so far gone as
this. In his own mind, he set her down, now, as being mad as a March
hare, and accordingly answered in that soothing tone people use to
imbeciles,
“My dear Madame Masque, pray do not excite yourself, or say such
dreadful things. I am sure you would not willfully cause the death of
any one, much less that of one who loved you as he did.”
La Masque broke into a wild laugh, almost worse to hear than her former
despairing moans.
“The man thinks me mad! He will not believe, unless he sees and knows
for himself! Perhaps you, too, Sir Norman Kingsley,” she cried,
changing into sudden fierceness, “would like to see the face behind
this mask?--would like to see what has slain your friend, and share his
fate?”
“Certainly,” said Sir Norman. “I should like to see it; and I think I
may safely promise not to die from the effects. But surely, madame, you
deceive yourself; no face, however ugly--even supposing you to possess
such a one--could produce such dismay as to cause death.”
“You shall see.”
She was looking down into the plague-pit, standing so close to its
cracking edge, that Sir Norman's blood ran cold, in the momentary
expectation to see her slip and fall headlong in. Her voice was less
fierce and less wild, but her hands were still clasped tightly over her
heart, as if to ease the unutterable pain there. Suddenly, she looked
up, and said, in an altered tone:
“You have lost Leoline?”
“And found her again. She is in the power of one Count L'Estrange.”
“And if in his power, pray, how have you found her?”
“Because we are both to meet in her presence within this very hour, and
she is to decide between us.”
“Has Count L'Estrange promised you this?”
“He has.”
“And you have no doubt what her decision will be?”
“Not the slightest.”
“How came you to know she was carried off by this count?”
“He confessed it himself.”
“Voluntarily?”
“No; I taxed him with it, and he owned to the deed; but he voluntarily
promised to take me to her and abide by her decision.”
“Extraordinary!” said La Masque, as if to herself. “Whimsical as he is,
I scarcely expected he would give her up so easily as this.”
“Then you know him, madame?” said Sir Norman, pointedly.
“There are few things I do not know, and rare are the disguises I cannot
penetrate. So you have discovered it, too?”
“No, madame, my eyes were not sharp enough, nor had I sufficient
cleverness, even, for that. It was Hubert, the Earl of Rochester's page,
who told me who he was.”
“Ah, the page!” said La Masque, quickly. “You have then been speaking to
him? What do you think of his resemblance to Leoline?”
“I think it is the most astonishing resemblance I ever saw. But he is
not the only one who bears Leoline's face.”
“And the other is?”
“The other is she whom you sent me to see in the old ruins. Madame, I
wish you would tell me the secret of this wonderful likeness; for I am
certain you know, and I am equally certain it is not accidental.”
“You are right. Leoline knows already; for, with the presentiment that
my end was near, I visited her when you left, and gave her her whole
history, in writing. The explanation is simple enough. Leoline, Miranda,
and Hubert, are sisters and brother.”
Some misty idea that such was the case had been struggling through Sir
Norman's slow mind, unformed and without shape, ever since he had seen
the trio, therefore he was not the least astonished when he heard the
fact announced. Only in one thing he was a little disappointed.
“Then Hubert is really a boy?” he said, half dejectedly.
“Certainly he is. What did you take him to be?”
“Why, I thought--that is, I do not know,” said Sir Norman, quite
blushing at being guilty of so much romance, “but that he was a woman
in disguise. You see he is so handsome, and looks so much like Leoline,
that I could not help thinking so.”
“He is Leoline's twin brother--that accounts for it. When does she
become your wife?”
“This very morning, God willing!” said Sir Norman, fervently.
“Amen! And may her life and yours be long and happy. What becomes of the
rest?”
“Since Hubert is her brother, he shall come with us, if he will. As for
the other, she, alas! is dead.”
“Dead!” cried La Masque. “How? When? She was living, tonight!”
“True! She died of a wound.”
“A wound? Surely not given by the dwarfs hand?”
“No, no; it was quite accidental. But since you know so much of the
dwarf, perhaps you also know he is now the king's prisoner?”
“I did not know it; but I surmised as much when I discovered that you
and Count L'Estrange, followed by such a body of men, visited the ruin.
Well, his career has been long and dark enough, and even the plague
seemed to spare him for the executioner. And so the poor mock-queen is
dead? Well, her sister will not long survive her.”
“Good Heavens, madame!” cried Sir Norman, aghast. “You do not mean to
say that Leoline is going to die?”
“Oh, no! I hope Leoline has a long and happy life before her. But the
wretched, guilty sister I mean is, myself; for I, too, Sir Norman, am
her sister.”
At this new disclosure, Sir Norman stood perfectly petrified; and La
Masque, looking down at the dreadful place at her feet, went rapidly on:
“Alas and alas! that it should be so; but it is the direful truth. We
bear the same name, we had the same father; and yet I have been the
curse and bane of their lives.”
“And Leoline knows this?”
“She never knew it until this night, or any one else alive; and no one
should know it now, were not my ghastly life ending. I prayed her to
forgive me for the wrong I have done her; and she may, for she is gentle
and good--but when, when shall I be able to forgive myself?”
The sharp pain in her voice jarred on Sir Norman's ear and heart; and,
to get rid of its dreary echo, he hurriedly asked:
“You say you bear the same name. May I ask what name that is?”
“It is one, Sir Norman Kingsley, before which your own ancient title
pales. We are Montmorencis, and in our veins runs the proudest blood in
France.”
“Then Leoline is French and of noble birth?” said Sir Norman, with
a thrill of pleasure. “I loved her for herself alone, and would have
wedded her had she been the child of a beggar; but I rejoice to hear
this nevertheless. Her father, then, bore a title?”
“Her father was the Marquis de Montmorenci, but Leoline's mother and
mine were not the same--had they been, the lives of all four might have
been very different; but it is too late to lament that now. My mother
had no gentle blood in her veins, as Leoline's had, for she was but a
fisherman's daughter, torn from her home, and married by force. Neither
did she love my father notwithstanding his youth, rank, and passionate
love for her, for she was betrothed to another bourgeois, like herself.
For his sake she refused even the title of marchioness, offered her in
the moment of youthful and ardent passion, and clung, with deathless
truth, to her fisher-lover. The blood of the Montmorencis is fierce
and hot, and brooks no opposition” (Sir Norman thought of Miranda, and
inwardly owned that that was a fact); “and the marquis, in his jealous
wrath, both hated and loved her at the same time, and vowed deadly
vengeance against her bourgeois lover. That vow he kept. The young
fisherman was found one morning at his lady-love's door without a head,
and the bleeding trunk told no tales.
“Of course, for a while, she was distracted and so on; but when the
first shock of her grief was over, my father carried her off, and
forcibly made her his wife. Fierce hatred, I told you, was mingled with
his fierce love, and before the honeymoon was over it began to break
out. One night, in a fit of jealous passion, to which he was addicted,
he led her into a room she had never before been permitted to enter;
showed her a grinning human skull, and told her it was her lover's!
In his cruel exultation, he confessed all; how he had caused him to be
murdered; his head severed from the body; and brought here to punish
her, some day, for her obstinate refusal to love him.
“Up to this time she had been quiet and passive, bearing her fate with
a sort of dumb resignation; but now a spirit of vengeance, fiercer and
more terrible than his own, began to kindle within her; and, kneeling
down before the ghastly thing, she breathed a wish--a prayer--to the
avenging Jehovah, so unutterably horrible, that even her husband had
to fly with curdling blood from the room. That dreadful prayer was
heard--that wish fulfilled in me; but long before I looked on the light
of day that frantic woman had repented of the awful deed she had done.
Repentance came too late the sin of the father was visited on the child,
and on the mother, too, for the moment her eyes fell upon me, she became
a raving maniac, and died before the first day of my life had ended.
“Nurse and physician fled at the sight of me; but my father, though
thrilling with horror, bore the shock, and bowed to the retributive
justice of the angry Deity she had invoked. His whole life, his whole
nature, changed from that hour; and, kneeling beside my dead mother, as
he afterward told me, he vowed before high Heaven to cherish and love
me, even as though I had not been the ghastly creature I was. The
physician he bound by a terrible oath to silence; the nurse he forced
back, and, in spite of her disgust and abhorrence, compelled her to
nurse and care for me. The dead was buried out of sight; and we had
rooms in a distant part of the house, which no one ever entered but
my father and the nurse. Though set apart from my birth as something
accursed, I had the intellect and capacity of--yes, far greater
intellect and capacity than, most children; and, as years passed by, my
father, true to his vow, became himself my tutor and companion. He did
not love me--that was an utter impossibility; but time so blunts the
edge of all things, that even the nurse became reconciled to me, and my
father could scarcely do less than a stranger. So I was cared for, and
instructed, and educated; and, knowing not what a monstrosity I was, I
loved them both ardently, and lived on happily enough, in my splendid
prison, for my first ten years in this world.
“Then came a change. My nurse died; and it became clear that I must quit
my solitary life, and see the sort of world I lived in. So my father,
seeing all this, sat down in the twilight one night beside me, and told
me the story of my own hideousness. I was but a child then, and it is
many and many years ago; but this gray summer morning, I feel what I
felt then, as vividly as I did at the time. I had not learned the great
lesson of life then--endurance, I have scarcely learned it yet, or I
should bear life's burden longer; but that first night's despair
has darkened my whole after-life. For weeks I would not listen to my
father's proposal, to hide what would send all the world from me in
loathing behind a mask; but I came to my senses at last, and from
that day to the present--more days than either you or I would care to
count--it has not been one hour altogether off my face.”
“I was the wonder and talk of Paris, when I did appear; and most of the
surmises were wild and wide of the mark--some even going so far as to
say it was all owing to my wonderful unheard-of beauty that I was thus
mysteriously concealed from view. I had a soft voice, and a tolerable
shape; and upon this, I presume, they founded the affirmation. But my
father and I kept our own council, and let them say what they listed.
I had never been named, as other children are; but they called me
La Masque now. I had masters and professors without end, and studied
astronomy and astrology, and the mystic lore of the old Egyptians, and
became noted as a prodigy and a wonder, and a miracle of learning, far
and near.
“The arts used to discover the mystery and make me unmask were
innumerable and almost incredible; but I baffled them all, and began,
after a time, rather to enjoy the sensation I created than otherwise.
“There was one, in particular, possessed of even more devouring
curiosity than the rest, a certain young countess of miraculous beauty,
whom I need not describe, since you have her very image in Leoline.
The Marquis de Montmorenci, of a somewhat inflammable nature, loved her
almost as much as he had done my mother, and she accepted him, and they
were married. She may have loved him (I see no reason why she should
not), but still to this day I think it was more to discover the secret
of La Masque than from any other cause. I loved my beautiful new mother
too well to let her find it out; although from the day she entered our
house as a bride, until that on which she lay on her deathbed, her whole
aim, day and night, was its discovery. There seemed to be a fatality
about my father's wives; for the beautiful Honorine lived scarcely
longer than her predecessor, and she died, leaving three children--all
born at one time--you know them well, and one of them you love. To my
care she intrusted them on her deathbed, and she could have scarcely
intrusted them to worse; for, though I liked her, I most decidedly
disliked them. They were lovely children--their lovely mother's image;
and they were named Hubert, Leoline, and Honorine, or, as you knew her,
Miranda. Even my father did not seem to care for them much, not even
as much as he cared for me; and when he lay on his deathbed, one year
later, I was left, young as I was, their sole guardian, and trustee of
all his wealth. That wealth was not fairly divided--one-half being left
to me and the other half to be shared equally between them; but, in my
wicked ambition, I was not satisfied even with that. Some of my father's
fierce and cruel nature I inherited; and I resolved to be clear of these
three stumbling-blocks, and recompense myself for my other misfortunes
by every indulgence boundless riches could bestow. So, secretly, and in
the night, I left my home, with an old and trusty servant, known to you
as Prudence, and my unfortunate, little brother and sisters. Strange
to say, Prudence was attached to one of them, and to neither of the
rest--that one was Leoline, whom she resolved to keep and care for, and
neither she nor I minded what became of the other two.”
“From Paris we went to Dijon, where we dropped Hubert into the turn at
the convent door, with his name attached, and left him where he would
be well taken care of, and no questions asked. With the other two we
started for Calais, en route for England; and there Prudence got rid
of Honorine in a singular manner. A packet was about starting for the
island of our destination, and she saw a strange-looking little man
carrying his luggage from the wharf into a boat. She had the infant in
her arms, having carried it out for the identical purpose of getting rid
of it; and, without more ado, she laid it down, unseen, among boxes and
bundles, and, like Hagar, stood afar off to see what became of it. That
ugly little man was the dwarf; and his amazement on finding it among
his goods and chattels you may imagine; but he kept it, notwithstanding,
though why, is best known to himself. A few weeks after that we, too,
came over, and Prudence took up her residence in a quiet village a long
way from London. Thus you see, Sir Norman, how it comes about that we
are so related, and the wrong I have done them all.”
“You have, indeed!” said Sir Norman, gravely, having listened, much
shocked and displeased, at this open confession; “and to one of them it
is beyond our power to atone. Do you know the life of misery to which
she has been assigned?”
“I know it all, and have repented for it in my own heart, in dust
and ashes! Even I--unlike all other earthly creatures as I am--have a
conscience, and it has given me no rest night or day since. From that
hour I have never lost sight of them; every sorrow they have undergone
has been known to me, and added to my own; and yet I could not, or would
not, undo what I had done. Leoline knows all now; and she will tell
Hubert, since destiny has brought them together; and whether they will
forgive me I know not. But yet they might; for they have long and happy
lives before them, and we can forgive everything to the dead.”
“But you are not dead,” said Sir Norman; “and there is repentance and
pardon for all. Much as you have wronged them, they will forgive you;
and Heaven is not less merciful than they!”
“They may; for I have striven to atone. In my house there are proofs and
papers that will put them in possession of all, and more than all, they
have lost. But life is a burden of torture I will bear no longer. The
death of him who died for me this night is the crowning tragedy of my
miserable life; and if my hour were not at hand, I should not have told
you this.”
“But you have not told me the fearful cause of so much guilt and
suffering. What is behind that mask?”
“Would you, too, see?” she asked, in a terrible voice, “and die?”
“I have told you it is not in my nature to die easily, and it is
something far stronger than mere curiosity makes me ask.”
“Be it so! The sky is growing red with day-dawn, and I shall never see
the sun rise more, for I am already plague-struck!”
That sweetest of all voices ceased. The white hands removed the
mask, and the floating coils of hair, and revealed, to Sir Norman's
horror-struck gaze, the grisly face and head, and the hollow
eye-sockets, the grinning mouth, and fleshless cheeks of a skeleton!
He saw it but for one fearful instant--the next, she had thrown up both
arms, and leaped headlong into the loathly plague-pit. He saw her for
a second or two, heaving and writhing in the putrid heap; and then the
strong man reeled and fell with his face on the ground, not feigning,
but sick unto death. Of all the dreadful things he had witnessed that
night, there was nothing so dreadful as this; of all the horror he had
felt before, there was none to equal what he felt now. In his momentary
delirium, it seemed to him she was reaching her arms of bone up to drag
him in, and that the skeleton-face was grinning at him on the edge of
the awful pit. And, covering his eyes with his hands, he sprang up, and
fled away.
CHAPTER XXII. DAY-DAWN.
All this time, the attendant, George, had been sitting, very much at his
ease, on horseback, looking after Sir Norman's charger and admiring
the beauties of sunrise. He had seen Sir Norman in conversation with
a strange female, and not much liking his near proximity to the
plague-pit, was rather impatient for it to come to an end; but when he
saw the tragic manner in which it did end, his consternation was beyond
all bounds. Sir Norman, in his horrified flight, would have fairly
passed him unnoticed, had not George arrested him by a loud shout.
“I beg your pardon, Sir Norman,” he exclaimed, as that gentleman turned
his distracted face; “but, it seems to me, you are running away. Here is
your horse; and allow me to say, unless we hurry we will scarcely reach
the count by sunrise.”
Sir Norman leaned against his horse, and shaded his eyes with his hand,
shuddering like one in an ague.
“Why did that woman leap into the plague-pit?” inquired George, looking
at him curiously. “Was it not the sorceress, La Masque?”
“Yes, yes. Do not ask me any questions now,” replied Sir Norman, in a
smothered voice, and with an impatient wave of his hand.
“Whatever you please, sir,” said George, with the flippancy of his
class; “but still I must repeat, if you do not mount instantly, we will
be late; and my master, the count, is not one who brooks delay.”
The young knight vaulted into the saddle without a word, and started
off at a break-neck pace into the city. George, almost unable to keep up
with him, followed instead of leading, rather skeptical in his own mind
whether he were not riding after a moon-struck lunatic. Once or twice
he shouted out a sharp-toned inquiry as to whether he knew where he was
going, and that they were taking the wrong way altogether; to all of
which Sir Norman deigned not the slightest reply, but rode more and more
recklessly on. There were but few people abroad at that hour; indeed,
for that matter, the streets of London, in the dismal summer of 1665,
were, comparatively speaking, always deserted; and the few now wending
their way homeward were tired physicians and plague-nurses from the
hospitals, and several hardy country folks, with more love of lucre
than fear of death bending their steps with produce to the market-place.
These people, sleepy and pallid in the gray haze of daylight, stared in
astonishment after the two furious riders; and windows were thrown open,
and heads thrust out to see what the unusual thunder of horses' hoofs at
that early hour meant. George followed dauntlessly on, determined to
do it or die in the attempt; and if he had ever heard of the Flying
Dutchman, would undoubtedly have come to the conclusion that he was
just then following his track on dry land. But, unlike the hapless
Vanderdecken, Sir Norman came to a halt at last, and that so suddenly
that his horse stood on his beam ends, and flourished his two fore limbs
in the atmosphere. It was before La Masque's door; and Sir Norman was
out of the saddle in a flash, and knocking like a postman with the
handle of his whip on the door. The thundering reveille rang through the
house, making it shake to its centre, and hurriedly brought to the door,
the anatomy who acted as guardian-angel of the establishment.
“La Masque is not at home, and I cannot admit you,” was his sharp
salute.
“Then I shall just take the trouble of admitting myself,” said Sir
Norman, shortly.
And without further ceremony, he pushed aside the skeleton and entered.
But that outraged servitor sprang in his path, indignant and amazed.
“No, sir; I cannot permit it. I do not know you; and it is against all
orders to admit strangers in La Masque's absence.”
“Bah! you old simpleton!” remarked Sir Norman, losing his customary
respect for old age in his impatience, “I have La Masque's order for
what I am about to do. Get along with you directly, will you? Show me to
her private room, and no nonsense!”
He tapped his sword-hilt significantly as he spoke, and that argument
proved irresistible. Grumbling, in low tones, the anatomy stalked
up-stairs; and the other followed, with very different feelings from
those with which he had mounted that staircase last. His guide paused in
the hall above, with his hand on the latch of a door.
“This is her private room, is it!” demanded Sir Norman.
“Yes.”
“Just stand aside, then, and let me pass.”
The room he entered was small, simply furnished, and seemed to answer
as bed-chamber and study, all in one. There was a writing-table under a
window, covered with books, and he glanced at them with some
curiosity. They were classics, Greek and Latin, and other little known
tongues--perhaps Sanscrit and Chaldaic, French belles lettres, novels,
and poetry, and a few rare old English books. There were no papers,
however, and those were what he was in search of; so spying a drawer in
the table, he pulled it hastily open. The sight that met his eyes fairly
dazzled him. It was full of jewels of incomparable beauty and value,
strewn as carelessly about as if they were valueless. The blaze of
gems at the midnight court seemed to him as nothing compared with the
Golconda, the Valley of Diamonds shooting forth sparks of rainbow-fire
before him now. Around one magnificent diamond necklace was entwined a
scrap of paper, on which was written:
“The family jewels of the Montmorencis. To be given to my sisters when I
am dead.”
That settled their destiny. All this blaze of diamonds, rubies, and
opals were Leoline's; and with the energetic rapidity characteristic
of our young friend that morning, he swept them out on the table, and
resumed his search for papers. No document was there to reward his
search, but the brief one twined round the necklace; and he was about
giving up in despair, when a small brass slide in one corner caught his
eye. Instantly he was at it, trying it every way, shoving it out and in,
and up and down, until at last it yielded to his touch, disclosing an
inner drawer, full of papers and parchments. One glance showed them to
be what he was in search of--proofs of Leoline and Hubert's identity,
with the will of the marquis, their father, and numerous other documents
relative to his wealth and estates. These precious manuscripts he rolled
together in a bundle, and placed carefully in his doublet, and then
seizing a beautifully-wrought brass casket, that stood beneath the
table, he swept the jewels in, secured it, and strapped it to his belt.
This brisk and important little affair being over, he arose to go, and
in turning, saw the skeleton porter standing in the door-way, looking on
in speechless dismay.
“It's all right my ancient friend!” observed Sir Norman, gravely. “These
papers must go before the king, and these jewels to their proper owner.”
“Their proper owner!” repeated the old man, shrilly; “that is La Masque.
Thief-robber-housebreaker--stop!”
“My good old friend, you will do yourself a mischief if you bawl like
that. Undoubtedly these things were La Masque's, but they are so no
longer, since La Masque herself is among the things that were!”
“You shall not go!” yelled the old man, trembling with rage and anger.
“Help! help! help!”
“You noisy old idiot!” cried Sir Norman, losing all patience, “I will
throw you out of the window if you keep up such a clamor as this. I tell
you La Masque is dead!”
At this ominous announcement, the ghastly porter fell back, and became,
if possible, a shade more ghastly than was his wont.
“Dead and buried!” repeated Sir Norman, with gloomy sternness, “and
there will be somebody else coming to take possession shortly. How many
more servants are there here beside yourself?”
“Only one, sir--my wife Joanna. In mercy's name, sir, do not turn us out
in the streets at this dreadful time!”
“Not I! You and your wife Joanna may stagnate here till you blue-mold,
for me. But keep the door fast, my good old friend, and admit no
strangers, but those who can tell you La Masque is dead!”
With which parting piece of advice Sir Norman left the house, and joined
George, who sat like an effigy before the door, in a state of great
mental wrath, and who accosted him rather suddenly the moment he made
his appearance.
“I tell you what, Sir Norman Kingsley, if you have many more morning
calls to make, I shall beg leave to take my departure. As it is, I know
we are behind time, and his ma--the count, I mean, is not one who it
accustomed or inclined to be kept waiting.”
“I am quite at your service now,” said Sir Norman, springing on
horseback; “so away with you, quick as you like.”
George wanted no second order. Before the words were well out of his
companion's mouth, he was dashing away like a bolt from a bow, as
furiously as if on a steeple-chase, with Sir Norman close at his heels;
and they rode, flushed and breathless, with their steeds all a foaming,
into the court-yard of the royal palace at Whitehall, just as the early
rising sun was showing his florid and burning visage above the horizon.
The court-yard, unlike the city streets, swarmed with busy life. Pages,
and attendants, and soldiers, moving hither and thither, or lounging
about, preparing for the morning's journey to Oxford. Among the rest
Sir Norman observed Hubert, lying very much at his ease wrapped in his
cloak, on the ground, and chatting languidly with a pert and pretty
attendant of the fair Mistress Stuart. He cut short his flirtation,
however, abruptly enough, and sprang to his feet as he saw Sir Norman,
while George immediately darted off and disappeared from the palace.
“Am I late Hubert?” said his hurried questioner, as he drew the lad's
arm within his own, and led him off out of hearing.
“I think not. The count,” said Hubert, with laughing emphasis, “has
not been visible since he entered yonder doorway, and there has been no
message that I have heard of. Doubtless, now that George has arrived,
the message will soon be here, for the royal procession starts within
half an hour.”
“Are you sure there is no trick, Hubert? Even now he may be with
Leoline!”
Hubert shrugged his shoulders.
“He maybe; we must take our chance for that; but we have his royal word
to the contrary. Not that I have much faith in that!” said Hubert.
“If he were king of the world instead of only England,” cried Sir
Norman, with flashing eyes, “he shall not have Leoline while I wear a
sword to defend her!”
“Regicide!” exclaimed Hubert, holding up both hands in affected horror.
“Do my ears deceive me? Is this the loyal and chivalrous Sir Norman
Kingsley, ready to die for king and country--”
“Stuff and nonsense!” interrupted Sir Norman, impatiently. “I tell you
any one, be he whom he may, that attempts to take Leoline from me, must
reach her over my dead body!”
“Bravo! You ought to be a Frenchman, Sir Norman! And what if the lady
herself, finding her dazzling suitor drop his barnyard feathers, and
soar over her head in his own eagle plumes, may not give you your
dismissal, and usurp the place of pretty Madame Stuart.”
“You cold-blooded young villain! if you insinuate such a thing again,
I'll throttle you! Leoline loves me, and me alone!”
“Doubtless she thinks so; but she has yet to learn she has a king for a
suitor!”
“Bah! You are nothing but a heartless cynic,” said Sir Norman, yet with
an anxious and irritated flush on his face, too: “What do you know of
love?”
“More than you think, as pretty Mariette yonder could depose, if put
upon oath. But seriously, Sir Norman, I am afraid your case is of the
most desperate; royal rivals are dangerous things!”
“Yet Charles has kind impulses, and has been known to do generous acts.”
“Has he? You expect him, beyond doubt, to do precisely as he said; and
if Leoline, different from all the rest of her sex, prefers the knight
to the king, he will yield her unresistingly to you.”
“I have nothing but his word for it!” said Sir Norman, in a distracted
tone, “and, at present, can do nothing but bide my time.”
“I have been thinking of that, too! I promised, you know, when I left
her, last night, that we would return before day-dawn, and rescue her.
The unhappy little beauty will doubtless think I have fallen into the
tiger's jaws myself, and has half wept her bright eyes out by this
time!”
“My poor Leoline! And O Hubert, if you only knew what she is to you!”
“I do know! She told me she was my sister!”
Sir Norman looked at him in amazement.
“She told you, and you take it like this?”
“Certainly, I take it like this. How would you have me take it? It is
nothing to go into hysterics about, after all!”
“Of all the cold-blooded young reptiles I ever saw,” exclaimed Sir
Norman, with infinite disgust, “you are the worst! If you were told you
were to receive the crown of France to-morrow, you would probably open
your eyes a trifle, and take it as you would a new cap!”
“Of course I would. I haven't lived in courts half my life to get up a
scene for a small matter! Besides, I had an idea from the first moment I
saw Leoline that she must be my sister, or something of that sort.”
“And so you felt no emotion whatever on hearing it?”
“I don't know as I properly understand what you mean by emotion,” said
Herbert, reflectively. “But ye-e-s, I did feel somewhat pleased--she is
so like me, and so uncommonly handsome!”
“Humph! there's a reason! Did she tell you how she discovered it
herself?”
“Let me see--no--I think not--she simply mentioned the fact.”
“She did not tell you either, I suppose, that you had more sisters than
herself?”
“More than herself! No. That would be a little too much of a good thing!
One sister is quite enough for any reasonable mortal.”
“But there were two more, my good young friend!”
“Is it possible?” said Hubert, in a tone that betrayed not the slightest
symptom of emotion. “Who are they?”
Sir Norman paused one instant, combating a strong temptation to seize
the phlegmatic page by the collar, and give him such another shaking as
he would not get over for a week to come; but suddenly recollecting he
was Leoline's brother, and by the same token a marquis or thereabouts,
he merely paused to cast a withering look upon him, and walked on.
“Well,” said Hubert, “I am waiting to be told.”
“You may wait, then!” said Sir Norman, with a smothered growl; “and I
give you joy when I tell you. Such extra communicativeness to one so
stolid could do no good!”
“But I am not stolid! I am in a perfect agony of anxiety,” said Hubert.
“You young jackanapes!” said Sir Norman, half-laughing, half-incensed.
“It were a wise deed and a godly one to take you by the hind-leg and
nape of the neck, and pitch you over yonder wall; but for your master's
sake I will desist.”
“Which of them?” inquired Hubert, with provoking gravity.
“It would be more to the point if you asked me who the others were, I
think.”
“So I have, and you merely abused me for it. But I think I know one
of them without being told. It is that other fac-simile of Leoline and
myself who died in the robber's ruin!”
“Exactly. You and she, and Leoline, were triplets!”
“And who is the other?”
“Her name is La Masque. Have you ever heard it?”
“La Masque! Nonsense!” exclaimed Hubert, with some energy in his voice
at last. “You but jest, Sir Norman Kingsley!”
“No such thing! It is a positive fact! She told me the whole story
herself!”
“And what is the whole story; and why did she not tell it to me instead
of you.”
“She told it to Leoline, thinking, probably, she had the most sense; and
she told it to me, as Leoline's future husband. It is somewhat long to
relate, but it will help to beguile the time while we are waiting for
the royal summons.”
And hereupon Sir Norman, without farther preface, launched into a rapid
resume of La Masque's story, feeling the cold chill with which he had
witnessed it creep over him as he narrated her fearful end.
“It struck me,” concluded Sir Norman, “that it would be better to
procure any papers she might possess at once, lest, by accident, they
should fall into other hands; so I rode there directly, and, in spite
of the cantankerous old porter, searched diligently, until I found them.
Here they are,” said Sir Norman, drawing forth the roll.
“And what do you intend doing with them?” inquired Hubert, glancing at
the papers with an unmoved countenance.
“Show them to the king, and, though his mediation with Louis, obtain for
you the restoration of your rights.”
“And do you think his majesty will give himself so much trouble for the
Earl of Rochester's page?”
“I think he will take the trouble to see justice done, or at least he
ought to. If he declines, we will take the matter in our own hands, my
Hubert; and you and I will seek Louis ourselves. Please God, the Earl of
Rochester's page will yet wear the coronet of the De Montmorencis!”
“And the sister of a marquis will be no unworthy mate even for a
Kingsley,” said Hubert. “Has La Masque left nothing for her?”
“Do you see this casket?” tapping the one of cared brass dangling from
his belt; “well, it is full of jewels worth a king's ransom. I found
them in a drawer of La Masque's house, with directions that they were to
be given to her sisters at her death. Miranda being dead, I presume they
are all Leoline's now.”
“This is a queer business altogether!” said Hubert, musingly; “and I
am greatly mistaken if King Louis will not regard it as a very pretty
little work of fiction.”
“But I have proofs, lad! The authenticity of these papers cannot be
doubted.”
“With all my heart. I have no objections to be made a marquis of, and go
back to la belle France, out of this land of plague and fog. Won't some
of my friends here be astonished when they hear it, particularly the
Earl of Rochester, when he finds out that he has had a marquis for a
page? Ah, here comes George, and bearing a summons from Count L'Estrange
at last.”
George approached, and intimated that Sir Norman was to follow him to
the presence of his master.
“Au revoir, then,” said Hubert. “You will find me here when you come
back.”
Sir Norman, with a slight tremor of the nerves at what was to come,
followed the king's page through halls and anterooms, full of loiterers,
courtiers, and their attendants. Once a hand was laid on his shoulder, a
laughing voice met his ear, and the Earl of Rochester stood beside him!
“Good-morning, Sir Norman; you are abroad betimes. How have you left
your friend, the Count L'Estrange?”
“Your lordship has probably seen him since I have, and should be able to
answer that question best.”
“And how does his suit progress with the pretty Leoline?” went on
the gay earl. “In faith, Kingsley, I never saw such a charming little
beauty; and I shall do combat with you yet--with both the count and
yourself, and outwit the pair of you!”
“Permit me to differ from your lordship. Leoline would not touch you
with a pair of tongs!”
“Ah! she has better taste than you give her credit for; but if I should
fail, I know what to do to console myself.”
“May I ask what?”
“Yes! there is Hubert, as like her an two peas in a pod. I shall dress
him up in lace and silks, and gewgaws, and have a Leoline of my own
already made its order.”
“Permit me to doubt that, too! Hubert is as much lost to you as
Leoline!”
Leaving the volatile earl to put what construction pleased him best on
this last sententious remark, he resumed his march after George, and
was ushered, at last, into an ante-room near the audience-chamber.
Count L'Estrange, still attired as Count L'Estrange, stood near a window
overlooking the court-yard, and as the page salaamed and withdrew, he
turned round, and greeted Sir Norman with his suavest air.
“The appointed hour is passed, Sir Norman Kingsley, but that is partly
your own fault. Your guide hither tells me that you stopped for some
time at the house of a fortune-teller, known as La Masque. Why was
this!”
“I was forced to stop on most important business,” answered the knight,
still resolved to treat him as the count, until it should please him
to doff his incognito, “of which you shall hear anon. Just now, our
business is with Leoline.”
“True! And as in a short time I start with yonder cavalcade, there
is but little time to lose. Apropos, Kingsley, who is that mysterious
woman, La Masque?”
“She is, or was (for she is dead now) a French lady, of noble birth, and
the sister of Leoline!”
“Her sister! And have you discovered Leoline's history?”
“I have.”
“And her name!”
“And her name. She is Leoline De Montmorenci! And with the proudest
blood of France in her veins, living obscure and unknown--a stranger in
a strange land since childhood; but, with God's grace and your help, I
hope to see her restored to all she has lost, before long.”
“You know me, then?” said his companion, half-smiling.
“Yes, your majesty,” answered Sir Norman, bowing low before the king.
CHAPTER XXIII. FINIS
As the last glimpse of moonlight and of Hubert's bright face vanished,
Leoline took to pacing up and down the room in a most conflicting and
excited state of mind. So many things had happened during the past
night; so rapid and unprecedented had been the course of events; so
changed had her whole life become within the last twelve hours, that
when she came to think it all over, it fairly made her giddy. Dressing
for her bridal; the terrible announcement of Prudence; the death-like
swoon; the awakening at the plague-pit; the maniac flight through the
streets; the cold plunge in the river; her rescue; her interview with
Sir Norman, and her promise; the visit of La Masque; the appearance of
the count; her abduction; her journey here; the coming of Hubert, and
their suddenly-discovered relationship. It was enough to stun any one;
and the end was not yet. Would Hubert effect his escape? Would they be
able to free her? What place was this, and who was Count L'Estrange? It
was a great deal easier to propound this catechism to herself than
to find answers to her own questions; and so she walked up and down,
worrying her pretty little head with all sorts of anxieties, until it
was a perfect miracle that softening of the brain did not ensue.
Her feet gave out sooner than her brain, though; and she got so tired
before long, that she dropped into a seat, with a long-drawn, anxious
sigh; and, worn out with fatigue and watching, she, at last, fell
asleep.
And sleeping, she dreamed. It seemed to her that the count and Sir
Norman were before her, in her chamber in the old house on London
Bridge, tossing her heart between them like a sort of shuttlecock.
By-and-by, with two things like two drumsticks, they began hammering
away at the poor, little, fluttering heart, as if it were an anvil and
they were a pair of blacksmiths, while the loud knocks upon it resounded
through the room. For a time, she was so bewildered that she could not
comprehend what it meant; but, at last, she became conscious that some
one was rapping at the door. Pressing one hand over her startled heart,
she called “Come in!” and the door opened and George entered.
“Count L'Estrange commands me to inform you, fair lady, that he will
do himself the pleasure of visiting you immediately, with Sir Norman
Kingsley, if you are prepared to receive them.”
“With Sir Norman Kingsley!” repeated Leoline, faintly. “I-I am afraid I
do not quite understand.”
“Then you will not be much longer in that deplorable state,” said
George, backing out, “for here they are.”
“Pardon this intrusion, fairest Leoline,” began the count, “but Sir
Norman and I are about to start on a journey, and before we go, there is
a little difference of opinion between us that you are to settle.”
Leoline looked first at one, and then at the other, utterly bewildered.
“What is it?” she asked.
“A simple matter enough. Last evening, if you recollect, you were my
promised bride.”
“It was against my will,” said Leoline, boldly, though her voice shook,
“You and Prudence made me.”
“Nay, Leoline, you wrong me. I, at least, need no compulsion.”
“You know better. You haunted me continually; you gave me no peace at
all; and I would just have married you to get rid of you.”
“And you never loved me?”
“I never did.”
“A frank confession! Did you, then, love any one else?”
The dark eyes fell, and the roseate glow again tinged the pearly face.
“Mute!” said the count, with an almost imperceptible smile. “Look up,
Leoline, and speak.”
But Leoline would do neither. With all her momentary daring gone, she
stood startled as a wild gazelle.
“Shall I answer for her, Sir Count?” exclaimed Sir Norman, his own cheek
dashed. “Leoline! Leoline! you love me!”
Leoline was silent.
“You are to decide between us, Leoline. Though the count forcibly
brought you here, he has been generous enough to grant this. Say, then,
which of as you love best.”
“I do not love him at all,” said Leoline, with a little disdain, “and he
knows it.”
“Then it is I!” said Sir Norman, him whole face beaming with delight.
“It is you!”
Leoline held out both hands to the loved one, and nestled close to his
side, like a child would to its protector.
“Fairly rejected!” said the count, with a pacing shade of mortification
on his brow; “and, my word being pledged, I most submit. But, beautiful
Leoline, you have yet to learn whom you have discarded.”
Clinging to her lover's arm, the girl grew white with undefined
apprehension. Leisurely, the count removed false wig, false eyebrows,
false beard; and a face well known to Leoline, from pictures and
description, turned full upon her.
“Sire!” she cried, in terror, calling on her knees with clasped hands.
“Nay; rise, fair Leoline,” said the king, holding out his hand to assist
her. “It is my place to kneel to one so lovely instead of having her
kneel to me. Think again. Will you reject the king as you did the
count?”
“Pardon, your majesty!”, said Leoline, scarcely daring to look up; “but
I must!”
“So be it! You are a perfect miracle of troth and constancy, and I think
I can afford to be generous for once. In fifteen minutes, we start for
Oxford, and you must accompany us as Lady Kingsley. A tiring woman will
wait upon you to robe you for your bridal. We will leave you now, and
let me enjoin expedition.”
And while she still stood too much astonished by the sudden proposal to
answer, both were gone, and in their place stood a smiling lady's maid,
with a cloud of gossamer white in her arms.
“Are those for me?” inquired Leoline, looking at them, and trying to
comprehend that it was all real.
“They are for you--sent by Mistress Stuart, herself. Please sit down,
and all will be ready in a trice.”
And in a trice all was ready. The shining, jetty curls were smoothed,
and fell in a glossy shower, trained with jewels--the pearls Leoline
herself still wore. The rose satin was discarded for another of bridal
white, perfect of fit, and splendid of feature. A great gossamer veil
like a cloud of silver mist over all, from head to foot; and Leoline was
shown herself in a mirror, and in the sudden transformation, could
have exclaimed, with the unfortunate lady in Mother Goose, shorn of her
tresses when in balmy slumber: “As sure as I'm a little woman, this is
none of it!” But she it was, nevertheless, who stood listening like one
in a trance, to the enthusiastic praises of her waiting-maid.
Again there was a tap at the door. This time the attendant opened
it, and George reappeared. Even he stood for a moment looking at the
silver-shining vision, and so lost in admiration, that he almost forgot
his message. But when Leoline turned the light of her beautiful eyes
inquiringly upon him, he managed to remember it, and announced that he
had been sent by the king to usher her to the royal presence.
With a feet-throbbing heart, flushed cheeks, and brilliant eyes, the
dazzling bride followed him, unconscious that she had never looked so
incomparably before in her life. It was but a few hours since she had
dressed for another bridal; and what wonderful things had occurred since
then--her whole destiny had changed in a night. Not quite sure yet but
that she was still dreaming, she followed on--saw George throw open the
great doors of the audience-chamber, and found herself suddenly in
what seemed to her a vast concourse of people. At the upper end of the
apartment was a brilliant group of ladies, with the king's beautiful
favorite in their midst, gossiping with knots of gentlemen. The king
himself stood in the recess of a window, with his brother, the Duke of
York, the Earl of Rochester, and Sir Norman Kingsley, and was laughing
and relating animatedly to the two peers the whole story. Leoline
noticed this, and noticed, too, that all wore traveling dresses--most of
the ladies, indeed, being attired in riding-habits.
The king himself advanced to her rescue, and drawing her arm within
his, he led her up and presented her to the fair Mistress Stuart, who
received her with smiling graciousness though Leoline, all unused
to court ways, and aware of the lovely lady's questionable position,
returned it almost with cold hauteur. Charles being in an unusually
gracious mood, only smiled as he noticed it, and introduced her next to
his brother of York, and her former short acquaintance, Rochester.
“There's no need, I presume, to make you acquainted with this other
gentleman,” said Charles, with a laughing glance at Sir Norman.
“Kingsley, stand forward and receive your bride. My Lord of Canterbury,
we await your good offices.”
The bland bishop, in surplice and stole, and book in hand, stepped from
a distant group, and advanced. Sir Norman, with a flush on his cheek,
and an exultant light in his eyes, took the hand of his beautiful bride
who stood lovely, and blushing, and downcast, the envy and admiration of
all. And
“Before the bishop now they stand,
The bridegroom and the bride;
And who shall paint what lovers feel
In this, their hour of pride?”
Who indeed? Like many other pleasant things is this world, it requires
to be felt to be appreciated; and, for that reason, it is a subject on
which the unworthy chronicler is altogether incompetent to speak. The
first words of the ceremony dropped from the prelate's urbane lips, and
Sir Norman's heart danced a tarantella within him. “Wilt thou?” inquired
the bishop, blandly, and slipped a plain gold ring on one pretty finger
of Leoline's hand and all heard the old, old formula: “What God hath
joined together, let no man put asunder!” And the whole mystic rite was
over.
Leoline gave one earnest glance at the ring on her finger. Long ago,
slaves wore rings as the sign of their bondage--is it for the same
reason married women wear them now? While she yet looked half-doubtfully
at it, she was surrounded, congratulated, and stunned with a
sadden clamor of voices; and then, through it all, she heard the
well-remembered voice of Count L'Estrange, saying:
“My lords and ladies, time is on the wing, and the sun is already half
an hour high! Off with you all to the courtyard, and mount, while Lady
Kingsley changes her wedding-gear for robes more befitting travel, and
joins us there.”
With a low obeisance to the king, the lovely bride hastened away after
one of the favorite's attendants, to do as he directed, and don a
riding-suit. In ten minutes after, when the royal cavalcade started, she
turned from the pest-stricken city, too and fairest, where all was fair,
by Sir Norman's side rode Leoline.
Sitting one winter night by a glorious winter fire, while the snow and
hail lashed the windows, and the wind without roared like Bottom, the
weaver, a pleasant voice whispered the foregoing tale. Here, as it
paused abruptly, and seemed to have done with the whole thing, I
naturally began to ask questions. What happened the dwarf and his
companions? What became of Hubert? Did Sir Norman and Lady Kingsley go
to Devonshire, and did either of them die of the plague? I felt, myself,
when I said it, that the last suggestion was beneath contempt, and so a
withering look from the face opposite proved; but the voice was obliging
enough to answer the rest of my queries. The dwarf and his cronies being
put into his majesty's jail of Newgate, where the plague was raging
fearfully, they all died in a week, and so managed to cheat the
executioner. Hubert went to France, and laid his claims before the royal
Louis, who, not being able to do otherwise, was graciously pleased to
acknowledge them; and Hubert became the Marquis de Montmorenci, and in
the fullness of time took unto himself a wife, even of the daughters of
the land, and lived happy for ever after.
And Sir Norman and Lady Kingsley did go to the old manor in Devonshire,
where--with tradition and my informant--there is to be seen to this day,
an old family-picture, painted some twelve years after, representing
the knight and his lady sitting serenely in their “ain ingle nook”
with their family around them. Sir Norman,--a little portlier, a little
graver, in the serious dignity of pater familias; and Leoline, with the
dark, beautiful eyes, the falling, shining hair, the sweet smiling lips,
and lovely, placid face of old. Between them, on three hassocks, sit
three little boys; while the fourth, and youngest, a miniature little
Sir Norman, leans against his mother's shoulder, and looks thoughtfully
in her sweet, calm face. Of the fate of those four, the same ancient
lore affirms: “That the eldest afterward bore the title of Earl of
Kingsley; that the second became a lord high admiral, or chancellor, or
something equally highfalutin; and that the third became an archbishop.
But the highest honor of all was reserved for the fourth, and youngest,”
continued the narrating voice, “who, after many days, sailed for
America, and, in the course of time, became President of the United
States.”
Determined to be fully satisfied on this point, at least, the author
invested all her spare change in a catalogue of all the said Presidents,
from George Washington to Chester A. Arthur, and, after a diligent and
absorbing perusal of that piece of literature, could find no such name
as Kingsley whatever; and has been forced to come to the conclusion that
he most have applied to Congress to change his name on arriving in the
New World, or else that her informant was laboring reader a falsehood
when she told her so. As for the rest,
“I know not how the truth may be;
I say it as 'twas said to me.”