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Updated: May 25, 2025
But, unlike the hapless Vanderdecken, Sir Norman came to a halt at last, and that so suddenly that his horse stood on his beam ends, and flourished his two fore limbs in the atmosphere. It was before La Masque's door; and Sir Norman was out of the saddle in a flash, and knocking like a postman with the handle of his whip on the door.
"I should recommend visiting the house we found her first; if not there, then we can try the pest-house." Sir Norman shuddered. "Heaven forefend she should be there! It is the most mysterious thing ever I heard of!" "What do you think now of La Masque's prediction dare you doubt still?" "Ormiston, I don't know what to think. It is the same face I saw, and yet " "Well and yet "
"Bah! you old simpleton!" remarked Sir Norman, losing his customary respect for old age in his impatience, "I have La Masque's order for what I am about to do. Get along with you directly, will you? Show me to her private room, and no nonsense!" He tapped his sword-hilt significantly as he spoke, and that argument proved irresistible.
Stooping down to examine the stumbling-block, it proved to be the rigid body of a man, and that man was Ormiston, stark and dead, with his face upturned to the calm night-sky. When Mr. Malcolm Ormiston, with his usual good sense and penetration, took himself off, and left Leoline and Sir Norman tete-a-tete, his steps turned as mechanically as the needle to the North Pole toward La Masque's house.
The procession passed through the one to the left, and Sir Norman started in dismay to find himself in the most gloomy apartment he had ever beheld in his life. It was all covered with black walls, ceiling, and floor were draped in black, and reminded him forcibly of La Masque's chamber of horrors, only this was more repellant.
And hereupon Sir Norman, without farther preface, launched into a rapid resume of La Masque's story, feeling the cold chill with which he had witnessed it creep over him as he narrated her fearful end.
And without further ceremony, he pushed aside the skeleton and entered. But that outraged servitor sprang in his path, indignant and amazed. "No, sir; I cannot permit it. I do not know you; and it is against all orders to admit strangers in La Masque's absence."
Through all his first shock of horror, another thing dawned on his mind; he had looked on this scene before. It was the second view in La Masque's caldron, and but one remained to be verified. The next instant, he was down on his knees in a paroxysm of grief and despair. "What have I done? what have I done?" was his cry. "Listen!" she said, faintly raising one finger. "Do you hear that?"
Thief-robber-housebreaker stop!" "My good old friend, you will do yourself a mischief if you bawl like that. Undoubtedly these things were La Masque's, but they are so no longer, since La Masque herself is among the things that were!" "You shall not go!" yelled the old man, trembling with rage and anger. "Help! help! help!"
"You see, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning, after you left, I stood at ease at La Masque's door, awaiting that lady's return, and was presently rewarded by seeing her come up with an old woman called Prudence. Do you recollect the woman who rushed screaming out of the home of the dead bride?" "Yes, yes!" "Well, that was Prudence.
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