Ormiston glanced back at the gloomy rain looming up like a black spectre in the blackness.
"Well, they must have a strong fancy for eavesdropping, I must say, who world go to that haunted heap to listen. What have you seen there, and where have you left your horse?"
"I told you before," said Sir Norman, rather impatiently, "that I have seen nothing--at least, nothing you would care about; and my horse is waiting me at the Golden Crown."
"Very well, we have no time to lose; so get there as fast as you can, and mount him and ride as if the demon were after you back to London."
"Back to London? Is the man crazy? I shall do no such thing, let me tell you, to-night."
"Oh, just as you please," said Ormiston, with a great deal of indifference, considering the urgent nature of his former request. "You can do as you like, you know, and so can I--which translated, means, I will go and tell her you have declined to come."
"Tell her? Tell whom? What are you talking about? Hang it, man!"
exclaimed Sir Norman, getting somewhat excited and profane, "what are you driving at? Can"t you speak out and tell me at once?"
"I have told you!" said Ormiston, testily: "and I tell you again, she sent me in search of you, and if you don"t choose to come, that"s your own affair, and not mine."
This was a little too much for Sir Norman"s overwrought feelings, and in the last degree of exasperation, he laid violent hands on the collar of Ormiston"s doublet, and shook him as if he would have shaken the name out with a jerk.
"I tell you what it is, Ormiston, you had better not aggravate me! I can stand a good deal, but I"m not exactly Moses or Job, and you had better mind what you"re at. If you don"t come to the point at once, and tell me who I she is, I"ll throttle you where you stand; and so give you warning."
Half-indignant, and wholly laughing, Ormiston stepped back out of the way of his excited friend.
"I cry you mercy! In one word, then, I have been dispatched by a lady in search of you, and that lady is--Leoline."
It has always been one of the inscrutable mysteries in natural philosophy that I never could fathom, why men do not faint. Certain it is, I never yet heard of a man swooning from excess of surprise or joy, and perhaps that may account for Sir Norman"s not doing so on the present occasion. But he came to an abrupt stand-still in their rapid career; and if it had not been quite so excessively dark, his friend would have beheld a countenance wonderful to look on, in its mixture of utter astonishment and sublime consternation.
"Leoline!" he faintly gasped. "Just stop a moment, Ormiston, and say that again--will you?"
"No," said Ormiston, hurrying unconcernedly on; "I shall do no such thing, for there is no time to lose, and if there were I have no fancy for standing in this dismal road. Come on, man, and I"ll tell you as we go."
Thus abjured, and seeing there was no help for it, Sir Norman, in a dazed and bewildered state, complied; and Ormiston promptly and briskly relaxed into business.
"You see, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning, after you left, I stood at ease at La Masque"s door, awaiting that lady"s return, and was presently rewarded by seeing her come up with an old woman called Prudence. Do you recollect the woman who rushed screaming out of the home of the dead bride?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Well, that was Prudence. She and La Masque were talking so earnestly they did not perceive me, and I--well, the fact is, Kingsley, I stayed and listened. Not a very handsome thing, perhaps, but I couldn"t resist it. They were talking of some one they called Leoline, and I, in a moment, knew that it was your flame, and that neither of them knew any more of her whereabouts than we did."
"And yet La Masque told me to come here in search of her," interrupted Sir Norman.
"Very true! That was odd--wasn"t it? This Prudence, it appears, was Leoline"s nurse, and La Masque, too, seemed to have a certain authority over her; and between them, I learned she was to have been married this very night, and died--or, at least, Prudence thought so--an hour or two before the time."
"Then she was not married?" cried Sir Norman, in an ecstasy of delight.
"Not a bit of it; and what is more, didn"t want to be; and judging from the remarks of Prudence, I should say, of the two, rather preferred the plague."
"Then why was she going to do it? You don"t mean to say she was forced?"
"Ah, but I do, though! Prudence owned it with the most charming candor in the world."
"Did you hear the name of the person she was to have married?" asked Sir Norman, with kindling eyes.
"I think not; they called him the count, if my memory serves me, and Prudence intimated that he knew nothing of the melancholy fate of Mistress Leoline. Most likely it was the person in the cloak and slouched hat we saw talking to the watchman."
Sir Norman said nothing, but he thought a good deal, and the burden of his thoughts was an ardent and heartfelt wish that the Court L"Estrange was once more under the swords of the three robbers, and waiting for him to ride to the rescue--that was all!
"La Masque urged Prudence to go back," continued Ormiston; "but Prudence respectfully declined, and went her way bemoaning the fate of her darling. When she was gone, I stepped up to Madame Masque, and that lady"s first words of greeting were an earnest hope that I had been edified and improved by what I had overheard."
"She saw you, then?" said Sir Norman.
"See me? I believe you! She has more eyes than ever Argus had, and each one is as sharp as a cambric needle. Of course I apologized, and so on, and she forgave me handsomely, and then we fell to discoursing--need I tell you on what subject?"
"Love, of course," said Sir Norman.
"Yes, mingled with entreaties to take off her mask that would have moved a heart of stone. It moved what was better--the heart of La Masque; and, Kingsley, she has consented to do it; and she says that if, after seeing her face, I still love her, she will be my wife."
"Is it possible? My dear Ormiston, I congratulate you with all my heart!"
"Thank you! After that she left me, and I walked away in such a frenzy of delight that I couldn"t have told whether I was treading this earth or the shining stars of the seventh heaven, when suddenly there flew past me a figure all in white--the figure of a bride, Kingsley, pursued by an excited mob. We were both near the river, and the first thing I knew, she was plump into it, with the crowd behind, yelling to stop her, that she was ill of the plague."
"Great Heaven! and was she drowned?"
"No, though it was not her fault. The Earl of Rochester and his page--you remember that page, I fancy--were out in their barge, and the earl picked her up. Then I got a boat, set out after her, claimed her--for I recognized her, of course--brought her ash.o.r.e, and deposited her safe and sound in her own house. What do you think of that?"
"Ormiston," said Norman, catching him by the shoulder, with a very excited face, "is this true?"
"True as preaching, Kingsley, every word of it! And the most extraordinary part of the business is, that her dip in cold water has effectually cured her of the plague; not a trace of it remains."
Sir Norman dropped his hand, and walked on, staring straight before him, perfectly speechless. In fact, no known language in the world could have done justice to his feelings at that precise period; for three times that night, in three different shapes, had he seen this same Leoline, and at the same moment he was watching her decked out in royal state in the rain, Ormiston had probably been a.s.sisting her from her cold bath in the river Thames.
Astonishment and consternation are words altogether too feeble to express his state of mind; but one idea remained clear and bright amid all his mental chaos, and that was, that the Leoline he had fallen in love with dead, was awaiting him, alive and well, in London.
"Well," said Ormiston, "you don"t speak! What do you think of all this?"
"Think! I can"t think--I"ve got past that long ago!" replied his friend, hopelessly. "Did you really say Leoline was alive and well?"
"And waiting for you--yes, I did, and I repeat it; and the sooner you get back to town, the sooner you will see her; so don"t loiter--"
"Ormiston, what do you mean! Is it possible I can see her to-night?"
"Yes, it is; the dear creature is waiting for you even now. You see, after we got to the house, and she had consented to become a little rational, mutual explanations ensued, by which it appeared she had ran away from Sir Norman Kingsley"s in a state of frenzy, had jumped into the river in a similarly excited state of mind, and was most anxious to go down on her pretty knees and thank the aforesaid Sir Norman for saving her life. What could any one as gallant as myself do under these circ.u.mstances, but offer to set forth in quest of that gentleman? And she promptly consented to sit up and wait his coming, and dismissed me with her blessing. And, Kingsley, I"ve a private notion she is as deeply affected by you as you are by her; for, when I mentioned your name, she blushed, yea, verily to the roots of her hair; and when she spoke of you, couldn"t so much as look me in the face--which is, you must own, a very bad symptom."
"Nonsense!" said Sir Norman, energetically. And had it been daylight, his friend would have seen that he blushed almost as extensively as the lady. "She doesn"t know me."
"Ah, doesn"t she, though? That shows all you know about it! She has seen you go past the window many and many a time; and to see you," said Ormiston, making a grimace undercover of the darkness, "is to love! She told me so herself."
"What! That she loved me!" exclaimed Sir Norman, his notions of propriety to the last degree shocked by such a revelation.
"Not altogether, she only looked that; but she said she knew you well by sight, and by heart, too, as I inferred from her countenance when she said it. There now, don"t make me talk any more, for I have told you everything I know, and am about hoa.r.s.e with my exertions."