The Midnight Queen - Page 45/177

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

throbbings. But the night-air was as hot as his heart; and, almost

suffocated by the sultry closeness, he was about to start for a plunge

in the river, when the sound of coming footsteps and voices arrested

him. He had met with so many odd ad ventures to-night that he stopped

now to see who was coming; for on every hand all was silent and

forsaken.

Footsteps and voices came closer; two figures took shape in the gloom,

and emerged from the darkness into the glimmering lamp light. He

recognised them both. One was the Earl of Rochester; the other, his

dark-eyed, handsome page--that strange page with the face of the lost

lady! The earl was chatting familiarly, and laughing obstreperously at

something or other, while the boy merely wore a languid smile, as if

anything further in that line were quite beneath his dignity.

"Silence and solitude," said the earl, with a careless glance around,

"I protest, Hubert, this night seems endless. How long is it till

midnight?"

"An hour and a half at least, I should fancy," answered the boy, with a

strong foreign accent. "I know it struck ten as we passed St. Paul's."