The Midnight Queen by May Agnes Fleming (best books under 200 pages txt) 📖

bid you good-night!"

"But, madame, what of Leoline? Do stop one moment and tell me of her."

"What have I to tell? I have told you all I know. If you want to find her, you must search in the city or in the pest-house!"

Prudence shuddered, and covered her face with her hands.

"O, my poor darling! so good and so beautiful. Heaven might surely have spared her! Are you going to do nothing farther about it?"

"What can I do? I have searched for her and have not found her, and what else remains?"

"Madame, you know everything--surely, surely you know where my poor little nursling is, among the rest."

Again La Masque laughed--another of her low, sweet, derisive laughs.

"No such thing, Prudence. If I did, I should have her here in a twinkling, depend upon--it. However, it all comes to the same thing in the end. She is probably dead by this time, and would have to be buried in the plague-pit, anyhow. If you have nothing further to say, Prudence, you had better bid me good-night, and let me go."

"Good-night, madame!" said Prudence, with a sort of groan, as she wrapped her cloak closely around her, and turned to go.

La Masque stood for a moment looking after her, and then placed a key in the lock of the door. But there is many a slip--she was not fated to enter as soon as she thought; for just at that moment a new step sounded beside her, a new voice pronounced her name, and looking around, she beheld Ormiston. With what feelings that young person had listened to the neat and appropriate dialogue I have just had the pleasure of immortalizing, may be--to use a phrase you may have heard before, once or twice--better imagined than described. He knew very well who Leoline was, and how she had been saved from the plague-pit; but where in the world had La Masque found it out. Lost in a maze of wonder, and inclined to doubt the evidence of his own ears, he had stood perfectly still, until his ladylove had so coolly dismissed her company, and then rousing himself just in time, he had come forward and accosted her. La Masque turned round, regarded him in silence for a moment, and when she spoke, her voice had an accent of mingled surprise and displeasure.

"You, Mr. Ormiston! How many more times am I to have the pleasure of seeing you again to-night?"

"Pardon, madame; it is the last time. But you must hear me now."

"Must I? Very well, then; if I must, you had better begin at once, for the night-air is said to be unhealthy, and as good people are scarce, I want to take care of myself."

"In that case, perhaps you had better let me enter, too. I hate to talk on the street, for every wall has ears."

"I am aware of that. When I was talking to my old friend, Prudence, two minutes ago, I saw a tall shape that I have reason to know, since it haunts me, like my own shadow, standing there and paying deed attention. I hope you found our conversation improving, Mr. Ormiston!"

"Madame!" began Ormiston, turning crimson.

"Oh, don't blush; there is quite light enough from yonder lamp to show that. Besides," added the lady, easily, "I don't know as I had any objection; you are interested in Leoline, and must feel curious to know something about her."

"Madame, what must you think of me? I have acted unpardonably."

"Oh, I know all that. There is no need to apologize, and I don't think any the worse of you for it. Will you come to business, Mr. Ormiston? I think I told you I wanted to go in. What may you want of me at this dismal hour?"

"O madame, need you ask! Does not your own heart tell you?"

"I am not aware that it does! And to tell you the truth, Mr. Ormiston, I don't know that I even have a heart! I am afraid I mast trouble you to put it in words."

"Then, madame, I love you!"

"Is that all? If my memory serves me, you have told me that little fact several times before. Is there anything else tormenting you, or may I go in?"

Ormiston groaned out an oath between his teeth, and La Masque raised one jeweled, snowy taper finger, reprovingly.

"Don't Mr. Ormiston--it's naughty, you know! May I go in?"

"Madame, you are enough to drive a man mad. Is the love I bear you worthy of nothing but mockery!"

"No, Mr. Ormiston, it is not; that is, supposing you really love me, which you don't."

"Madame!"

"Oh, you needn't flash and look indignant; it is quite true! Don't be absurd, Mr. Ormiston. How is it possible for you to love one you have never seen?"

"I have seen you. Do you think I am blind?" he demanded, indignantly.

"My face, I mean. I don't consider that you can see a person without looking in her face. Now you have never looked in mine, and how do you know I have any face at all?"

"Madame, you mock me."

"Not at all. How are you to know what is behind this mask?"

"I feel it, and that is better; and I love you all the same."

"Mr. Ormiston, how do you know but I am ugly."

"Madame, I do not believe you are; you are all too perfect not to have a perfect face; and even were it otherwise, I still love you!"

She broke into a laugh--one of her low, short, deriding laughs.

"You do! O man, how wise thou art! I tell you, if I took off this mask, the sight would curdle the very blood in your veins with horror--would freeze the lifeblood in your heart. I tell you!" she passionately cried, "there are sights too horrible for human beings to look on and live, and this--this is one of them!"

He started back, and stared at her aghast.

"You think me mad," she said, in a less fierce tone, "but I am not; and I repeat it, Mr. Ormiston, the sight of what this mask conceals would blast you. Go now, for Heaven's sake, and leave me in peace, to drag out the rest of my miserable life; and if ever you think of me, let it be to pray that it might speedily end. You have forced me to say this: so now be content. Be merciful, and go!"

She made a desperate gesture, and turned to leave him, but he caught her hand and held her fast.

"Never!" he cried, fiercely. "Say what you will! let that mask hide what it may! I will never leave you till life leaves me!"

"Man, you are mad! Release my hand and let me go!"

"Madame, hear me. There is but one way to prove my love, and my sanity, and that is--"

"Well?" she said, almost touched by his earnestness.

"Raise your mask and try me! Show me your face and see if I do not love you still!"

"Truly I know how much love you will have for me when it is revealed. Do you know that no one has looked in my face for the last eight years."

He stood and gazed at her in wonder.

"It is so, Mr. Ormiston; and in my heart I have vowed a vow to plunge headlong into the most loathsome plague-pit in London, rather than ever raise it again. My friend, be satisfied. Go and leave me; go and forget me."

"I can do neither until I have ceased to forget every thing earthly. Madame, I implore you, hear me!"

"Mr. Ormiston, I tell you, you but court your own doom. No one can look on me and live!"

"I will risk it," he said with an incredulous smile. "Only promise to show me your face."

"Be it so then!" she cried almost fiercely. "I promise, and be the consequences on your own head."

His whole face flushed with joy.

"I accept them. And when is that happy time to come?"

"Who knows! What must be done, had best be done quickly; but I tell thee it were safer to play with the lightning's chain than tamper with what thou art about to do."

"I take the risk! Will you raise your mask now?"

"No, no--I cannot! But yet, I may before the sun rises. My face"--with bitter scorn--"shows better by darkness than by daylight. Will you be out to see, the grand illumination."

"Most certainly."

"Then meet me here an hour after midnight, and the face so long hidden shall be revealed. But, once again, on the threshold of doom, I entreat you to pause."

"There is no such word for me!" he fiercely and exultingly cried. "I have your promise, and I shall hold you to it! And, madame, if, at last, you discover my love is changeless as fate itself, then--then may I not dare to hope for a return?"

"Yes; then you may hope," she said, with cold mockery. "If your love survives the sight, it will be mighty, indeed, and well worthy a return."

"And you will return it?"

"I will."

"You will be my wife?"

"With all my heart!"

"My darling!" he cried, rapturously--"for you are mine already--how can I ever thank you for this? If a whole lifetime devoted and consecrated to your happiness can repay you, it shall be yours!"

During this rhapsody, her hand had been on the handle of the door. Now she turned it.

"Good-night, Mr. Ormiston," she said, and vanished.


CHAPTER VII. THE EARL'S BARGE.

Shocks of joy, they tell me, seldom kill. Of my own knowledge I cannot say, for I have had precious little experience of such shocks in my lifetime, Heaven knows; but in the present instance, I can safely aver, they had no such dismal effect on Ormiston. Nothing earthly could have given that young gentleman a greater shock of joy than the knowledge he was to behold the long hidden face of his idol. That that face was ugly, he did not for an instant believe, or, at least, it never world be ugly to him. With a form so perfect--a form a sylph might have envied--a voice sweeter than the Singing Fountain of Arabia, hands and feet the most perfectly beautiful the sun ever shone on, it was simply a moral and physical impossibility, then, they could be joined to a repulsive face. There was a remote possibility that it was a little less exquisite than those ravishing items, and that her morbid fancy made her imagine it homely, compared with them, but he knew he never would share in that opinion. It was the reasoning of lover, rather, the logic; for when love glides smiling in at the door, reason stalks gravely, not to say sulkily, out of the window, and, standing afar off, eyes disdainfully the didos and antics of her late tenement. There was very little reason, therefore, in Ormiston's head and heart, but a great deal of something sweeter, joy--joy that thrilled and vibrated through every nerve within him. Leaning against the portal, in an absurd delirium of delight--for it takes but a trifle to jerk those lovers from the slimiest depths of the Slough of Despond to the topmost peak of the mountain of ecstasy--he uncovered his head that the night-air might cool its feverish