第3章

'If she be not fair for me What care I how fair she be!'""Kingsley, you know nothing about it!" said Ormiston, impatiently."So stop talking nonsense.If you are cold-blooded, I am not; and - I love her!"Sir Norman slightly shrugged his shoulders, and flung his smoked-out weed into a heap of fire-wood.

"Are we near her house?" he asked."Yonder is the bridge.""And yonder is the house," replied Ormiston, pointing to a large ancient building - ancient even for those times - with three stories, each projecting over the other."See! while the houses on either side are marked as pest-stricken, hers alone bears no cross.So it is: those who cling to life are stricken with death: and those who, like me, are desperate, even death shuns.""Why, my dear Ormiston, you surely are not so far gone as that?

Upon my honor, I had no idea you were in such a bad way.""I am nothing but a miserable wretch! and I wish to Heaven I was in yonder dead-cart, with the rest of them - and she, too, if she never intends to love me!"Ormiston spoke with such fierce earnestness, that there was no doubting his sincerity; and Sir Norman became profoundly shocked - so much so, that he did not speak again until they were almost at the door.Then he opened his lips to ask, in a subdued tone:

"She has predicted the future for you - what did she foretell?""Nothing good; no fear of there being anything in store for such an unlucky dog as I am.""Where did she learn this wonderful black art of hers?""In the East, I believe.She has been there and all over the world; and now visits England for the first time.""She has chosen a sprightly season for her visit.Is she not afraid of the plague, I wonder?""No; she fears nothing," said Ormiston, as he knocked loudly at the door."I begin to believe she is made of adamant instead of what other women are made of.""Which is a rib, I believe," observed Sir Norman, thoughtfully.

"And that accounts, I dare say, for their being of such a crooked and cantankerous nature.They're a wonderful race women are; and for what Inscrutable reason it has pleased Providence to create them - "The opening of the door brought to a sudden end this little touch of moralizing, and a wrinkled old porter thrust out a very withered and unlovely face.

"La Masque at home?" inquired Ormiston, stepping in, without ceremony.

The old man nodded, and pointed up stairs; and with a "This way, Kingsley," Ormiston sprang lightly up, three at a time, followed in the same style by Sir Norman.

"You seem pretty well acquainted with the latitude and longitude of this place," observed that young gentleman, as they passed into a room at the head of the stairs.

"I ought to be; I've been here often enough," said Ormiston.

"This is the common waiting-room for all who wish to consult La Masque.That old bag of bones who let us in has gone to announce us."Sir Norman took a seat, and glanced curiously round the room.It was a common-place apartment enough, with a floor of polished black oak, slippery as ice, and shining like glass; a few old Flemish paintings on the walls; a large, round table in the centre of the floor, on which lay a pair of the old musical instruments called "virginals." Two large, curtainless windows, with minute diamond-shaped panes, set in leaden casements, admitted the golden and crimson light.

"For the reception-room of a sorceress," remarked Sir Norman, with an air of disappointed criticism, "there is nothing very wonderful about all this.How is it she spaes fortunes any way?

As Lilly does by maps and charts; or as these old Eastern mufti do it by magic mirrors and all each fooleries?""Neither," said Ormiston, "her style in more like that of the Indian almechs, who show you your destiny in a well.She has a sort of magic lake in her room, and - but you will see it all for yourself presently.""I have always heard," said Sir Norman, in the same meditative way, "that truth lies at the bottom of a well, and I am glad some one has turned up at last who is able to fish it out.Ah! Here comes our ancient Mercury to show us to the presence of your goddess."The door opened, and the "old bag of bones," as Ormiston irreverently styled his lady-love's ancient domestic, made a sign for them to follow him.Leading the way down along a corridor, he flung open a pair of shining folding-doors at the end, and ushered them at once into the majestic presence of the sorceress and her magic room.Both gentlemen doffed their plumed hats.

Ormiston stepped forward at once; but Sir Norman discreetly paused in the doorway to contemplate the scene of action.As he slowly did so, a look of deep displeasure settled on his features, on finding it not half so awful as he had supposed.