"The highest, the lowest, the loveliest spot, They searched for the lady, and found her not."
No, though there was not the slightest trace of robbers or intruders, neither was there the slightest trace of the beautiful plague-patient.
Everything in the house was precisely as it always was, but the silver shining vision was gone.
CHAPTER III. THE COURT PAGE
The search was given over at last in despair, and the doctor took his hat and disappeared. Sir Norman and Ormiston stopped in the lower hall and looked at each other in mute amaze.
"What can it all mean?" asked Ormiston, appealing more to society at large than to his bewildered companion.
"I haven"t the faintest idea," said Sir Norman, distractedly; "only I am pretty certain, if I don"t find her, I shall do something so desperate that the plague will be a trifle compared to it!"
"It seems almost impossible that she can have been carried off--doesn"t it?"
"If she has!" exclaimed Sir Norman, "and I find out the abductor, he won"t have a whole bone in his body two minutes after!"
"And yet more impossible that she can have gone off herself," pursued Ormiston with the air of one entering upon an abstruse subject, and taking no heed whatever of his companion"s marginal notes.
"Gone off herself! Is the man crazy?" inquired Sir Norman, with a stare.
"Fifteen minutes before we left her dead, or in a dead swoon, which is all the same in Greek, and yet he talks of her getting up and going off herself!"
"In fact, the only way to get at the bottom of the mystery," said Ormiston, "is to go in search of her. Sleeping, I suppose, is out of the question."
"Of course it is! I shall never sleep again till I find her!"
They pa.s.sed out, and Sir Norman this time took the precaution of turning the key, thereby fulfilling the adage of locking the stable-door when the steed was stolen. The night had grown darker and hotter; and as they walked along, the clock of St. Paul"s tolled nine.
"And now, where shall we go?" inquired Sir Norman, as they rapidly hurried on.
"I should recommend visiting the house we found her first; if not there, then we can try the pest-house."
Sir Norman shuddered.
"Heaven forefend she should be there! It is the most mysterious thing ever I heard of!"
"What do you think now of La Masque"s prediction--dare you doubt still?"
"Ormiston, I don"t know what to think. It is the same face I saw, and yet--"
"Well--and yet--"
"I can"t tell you--I am fairly bewildered. If we don"t find the lady at her own house, I have half a mind to apply to your friend, La Masque, again."
"The wisest thing you could do, my dear fellow. If any one knows your unfortunate beloved"s whereabouts, it is La Masque, depend upon it."
"That"s settled then; and now, don"t talk, for conversation at this smart pace I don"t admire."
Ormiston, like the amiable, obedient young man that he was, instantly held his tongue, and they strode along at a breathless pace. There was an unusual concourse of men abroad that night, watching the gloomy face of the sky, and waiting the hour of midnight to kindle the myriad of fires; and as the two tall, dark figures went rapidly by, all supposed it to be a case of life or death. In the eyes of one of the party, perhaps it was; and neither halted till they came once more in sight of the house, whence a short time previously they had carried the death-cold bride. A row of lamps over the door-portals shed a yellow, uncertain light around, while the lights of barges and wherries were sown like stars along the river.
"There is the house," cried Ormiston, and both paused to take breath; "and I am about at the last gasp. I wonder if your pretty mistress would feel grateful if she knew what I have come through to-night for her sweet sake?"
"There are no lights," said Sir Norman, glancing anxiously up at the darkened front of the house; "even the link before the door is unlit.
Surely she cannot be there."
"That remains to be seen, though I"m very doubtful about it myself. Ah!
whom have we here?"
The door of the house in question opened, as he spoke, and a figure--a man"s figure, wearing a slouched hat and long, dark cloak, came slowly out. He stopped before the house and looked at it long and earnestly; and, by the twinkling light of the lamps, the friends saw enough of him to know he was young and distinguished looking.
"I should not wonder in the least if that were the bridegroom,"
whispered Ormiston, maliciously.
Sir Norman turned pale with jealousy, and laid his hand on his sword, with a quick and natural impulse to make the bride a widow forthwith.
But he checked the desire for an instant as the brigandish-looking gentleman, after a prolonged stare at the premises, stepped up to the watchman, who had given them their information an hour or two before, and who was still at his post. The friends could not be seen, but they could hear, and they did so very earnestly indeed.
"Can you tell me, my friend," began the cloaked unknown, "what has become of the people residing in yonder house?"
The watchman, held his lamp up to the face of the interlocutor--a handsome face by the way, what could be seen of it--and indulged himself in a prolonged survey.
"Well!" said the gentleman, impatiently, "have you no tongue, fellow?
Where are they, I say?"
"Blessed if I know," said the watchman. "I, wasn"t set here to keep guard over them was I? It looks like it, though," said the man in parenthesis; "for this makes twice to-night I"ve been asked questions about it."
"Ah!" said the gentleman, with a slight start. "Who asked you before, pray?"
"Two young gentlemen; lords, I expect, by their dress. Somebody ran screaming out of the house, and they wanted to know what was wrong."
"Well?" said the stranger, breathlessly, "and then?"
"And then, as I couldn"t tell them they went in to see for themselves, and shortly after came out with a body wrapped in a sheet, which they put in a pest-cart going by, and had it buried, I suppose, with the rest in the plague-pit."
The stranger fairly staggered back, and caught at a pillar near for support. For nearly ten minutes, he stood perfectly motionless, and then, without a word, started up and walked rapidly away. The friends looked after him curiously till he was out of sight.
"So she is not there," said Ormiston; "and our mysterious friend in the cloak is as much at a loss as we are ourselves. Where shall we go next--to La Masque or the peat-house?"
"To La Masque--I hate the idea of the pest-house!"
"She may be there, nevertheless; and under present circ.u.mstances, it is the best place for her."
"Don"t talk of it!" said Sir Norman, impatiently. "I do not and will not believe she is there! If the sorceress shows her to me in the caldron again, I verily believe I shall jump in head foremost."
"And I verily believe we will not find La Masque at home. She wanders through the streets at all hours, but particularly affects the night."