The Midnight Queen - Page 158/177

"You need not look as if you thought me mad, for I tell you it is

Heaven's truth! You say right--he loved me; but for that love he would

be living now!"

"You speak in riddles which I cannot read. How could that love have

caused his death, since his dearest wishes were to be granted to-night?"

"He told you that, did he?"

"He did. He told me you were to remove your mask; and if, on seeing you,

he still loved you, you were to be his wife."

"Then woe to him for ever having extorted such a promise from me! Oh,

I warned him again, and again, and again. I told him how it would be--I

begged him to desist; but no, he was blind, he was mad; he would rush on

his own doom! I fulfilled my promise, and behold the result!"

She pointed with a frantic gesture to the plague-pit, and wrung her

beautiful hands with the same moaning of anguish.

"Do I hear aright?" said Sir Norman, looking at her, and really doubting

if his ears had not deceived him. "Do you mean to say that, in keeping

your word and showing him your face, you have caused his death?"

"I do. I had warned him of it before. I told him there were sights too

horrible to look on and live, but nothing would convince him! Oh, why

was the curse of life ever bestowed upon such a hideous thing as I!"

Sir Norman gazed at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment. He had

thought, from the moment he saw her first, that there was something

wrong with her brain, to make her act in such a mysterious, eccentric

sort of way; but he had never positively thought her so far gone as

this. In his own mind, he set her down, now, as being mad as a March

hare, and accordingly answered in that soothing tone people use to

imbeciles, "My dear Madame Masque, pray do not excite yourself, or say such

dreadful things. I am sure you would not willfully cause the death of

any one, much less that of one who loved you as he did."

La Masque broke into a wild laugh, almost worse to hear than her former

despairing moans.

"The man thinks me mad! He will not believe, unless he sees and knows

for himself! Perhaps you, too, Sir Norman Kingsley," she cried,

changing into sudden fierceness, "would like to see the face behind

this mask?--would like to see what has slain your friend, and share his

fate?"

"Certainly," said Sir Norman. "I should like to see it; and I think I

may safely promise not to die from the effects. But surely, madame, you

deceive yourself; no face, however ugly--even supposing you to possess

such a one--could produce such dismay as to cause death."