The Midnight Queen - Page 134/177

What would Sir Norman say? What would he ever think of her, when he

found her gone. And what was destined to be her fate in this dreadful

out-of-the-way place? She would have cried, as most of her sex would be

tempted to do in such a situation, but that her dislike and horror of

Count L'Estrange was a good deal stronger than her grief, and turned her

tears to sparks of indignant fire. 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.