The Midnight Queen [94]
Never, never, never! would she be his wife! He might kill her a
thousand times, if he liked, and she wouldn't yield an inch. She
did not mind dying in a good cause; she could do it but once.
And with Sir Norman despising her, as she felt he must do, when
he found her run away, she rather liked the idea than otherwise.
Mentally, she bade adieu to all her friends before beginning to
prepare for her melancholy fate - to her handsome lover, to his
gallant friend Ormiston, to her poor nurse, Prudence, and to her
mysterious visitor, La Masque.
La Masque! Ah! that name awoke a new chord of recollection - the
casket, she had it with her yet. Instantly, everything was
forgotten but it and its contents; and she placed a chair
directly under the lamp, drew it out, and looked at it. It was a
pretty little bijou itself, with its polished ivory surface, and
shining clasps of silver. But the inside had far more interest
for her than the outside, and she fitted the key and unlocked it
with a trembling hand. It was lined with azure velvet, wrought
with silver thread, in dainty wreathe of water lilies; and in the
bottom, neatly folded, lay a sheet of foolscap. She opened it
with nervous haste; it was a common sheet enough, stamped with
fool's cap and bells, that showed it belonged to Cromwell's time.
It was closely written, in a light, fair hand, and bore the title
"Leoline's History."
Leoline's hand trembled so with eagerness, she could scarcely
hold the 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,