Sir Norman Kingsley's consternation and horror on discovering the dead body of his friend, was only equalled by his amazement as to how he got there, or how he came to be dead at all. The livid face, up turned to the moonlight, was unmistakably the face of a dead man—it was no swoon, no deception, like Leoline's; for the blue, ghastly paleness that marks the flight of the soul from the body was stamped on every rigid feature. Yet, Sir Norman could not realize it. We all know how hard it is to realize the death of a friend from whom we have but lately parted in full health and life, and Ormiston's death was so sudden. Why, it was not quite two hours since they had parted in Leoline's house, and even the plague could not carry off a victim as quickly as this.

“Ormiston! Ormiston!” he called, between grief and dismay, as he raised him in his arms, with his hand over the stilled heart; but Ormiston answered not, and the heart gave no pulsation beneath his fingers. He tore open his doublet, as the thought of the plague flashed through his mind, but no plague-spot was to be seen, and it was quite evident, from the appearance of the face, that he had not died of the distemper, neither was there any wound or mark to show that he had met his end violently. Yet the cold, white face was convulsed, as if he had died in throes of agony, the hands were clenched, till the nails sank into the flesh; and that was the only outward sign or token that he had suffered in expiring.

Sir Norman was completely at a loss, and half beside himself, with a thousand conflicting feelings of sorrow, astonishment, and mystification. The rapid and exciting events of the night had turned his head into a mental chaos, as they very well might, but he still had commonsense enough left to know that something must be done about this immediately. He knew the best place to take Ormiston was to the nearest apothecary's shop, which establishments were generally open, and filled, the whole livelong night, by the sick and their friends. As he was meditating whether or not to call the surly watchman to help him carry the body, a pest-cart came, providentially, along, and the driver-seeing a young man bending over a prostrate form-guessed at once what was the matter, and came to a halt.

“Another one!” he said, coming leisurely up, and glancing at the lifeless form with a very professional eye. “Well, I think there is room for another one in the cart; so bear a hand, friend, and let us have him out of this.”

“You are mistaken!” said Sir Norman sharply, “he has not died of the plague. I am not even certain whether he is dead at all.”

The driver looked at Sir Norman, then stooped down and touched Ormiston's icy face, and listened to hear him breathe. He stood up after a moment, with some thing like a small laugh.

“If he's alive,” he said, turning to go, “then I never saw any one dead! Good night, sir, I wish you joy when you bring him to.”

“Stay!” exclaimed the young man, “I wish you to assist me in bringing him to yonder apothecary's shop, and you may have this for your pains.”

“This” proved to be a talisman of alacrity; for the man pocketed it, and briskly laid hold of Ormiston by the feet, while Sir Norman wrapped his cloak reverently about him and took him by the shoulders. In this style his body was conveyed to the apothecary's shop which they found half full of applicants for medicine, among whom their entrance with the corpse produced no greater sensation than a momentary stare. The attire and bearing of Sir Norman proving him to be something different from their usual class of visitors, bringing one of the drowsy apprentices immediately to his side, inquiring what were his orders.

“A private room, and your master's attendance directly,” was the authoritative reply.

Both were to be had; the former, a hole in the wall behind the shop; the latter, a pallid, cadaverous-looking person, with the air of one who had been dead a week, thought better of it and rose again. There was a long table in the aforesaid hole in the wall, bearing a strong family likeness to a dissecting-table; upon which the stark figure was laid, and the pest-cart driver disappeared. The apothecary held a mirror close to the face; applied his ear to the pulse and heart; held a pocket-mirror over his mouth, looked at it; shook his head; and set down the candle with decision.

“The man is dead, sir!” was his criticism, “dead as a door nail! All the medicine in the shop wouldn't kindle one spark of life in such ashes!”

“At least, try! Try something—bleeding for instance,” suggested Sir Norman.

Again the apothecary examined the body, and again he shook his head dolefully.

“It's no use, sir: but, if it will please, you can try.”

The right arm was bared; the lancet inserted, one or two black drops sluggishly followed and nothing more.

“It's all a waste of time, you see,” remarked the apothecary, wiping his dreadful little weapon, “he's as dead as ever I saw anybody in my life! How did he come to his end, sir—not by the plague?”

“I don't know,” said Sir Norman, gloomily. “I wish you would tell me that.”

“Can't do it, sir; my skill doesn't extend that far. There is no plague-spot or visible wound or bruise on the person; so he must have died of some internal complaint—probably disease of the heart.”

“Never knew him to have such a thing,” said Sir Norman, sighing. “It is very mysterious and very dreadful, and notwithstanding all you have said, I cannot believe him dead. Can he not remain here until morning, at least?”

The starved apothecary looked at him out of a pair of hollow, melancholy eyes.

“Gold can do anything,” was his plaintive reply.

“I understand. You shall have it. Are you sure you can do nothing more for him?”

“Nothing whatever, sir; and excuse me, but there are customers in the shop, and I must leave, sir.”

Which he did, accordingly; and Sir Norman was left alone with all that remained of him who, two hours before, was his warm friend. He could scarcely believe that it was the calm majesty of death that so changed the expression of that white face, and yet, the longer he looked, the more deeply an inward conviction assured him that it was so. He chafed the chilling hands and face, he applied hartshorn and burnt feathers to the nostrils, but all these applications, though excellent in their way, could not exactly raise the dead to life, and, in this case, proved a signal failure. He gave up his doctoring, at last, in despair, and folding his arms, looked down at what lay on the table, and tried to convince himself that it was Ormiston. So absorbed was he in the endeavor, that he heeded not the passing moments, until it struck him with a shock that Hubert might even now be waiting for him at the trysting-place, with news of Leoline. Love is stronger than friendship, stronger than grief, stronger than death, stronger than every other feeling in the world; so he suddenly seized his hat, turned his back on Ormiston and the apothecary's shop, and strode off to the place he had quitted.

No Hubert was there, but two figures were passing slowly along in the moonlight, and one of them he recognized, with an impulse to spring at him like a tiger and strangle him. But he had been so shocked and subdued by his recent discovery, that the impulse which, half an hour before, would have been unhesitatingly obeyed, went for nothing, now; and there was more of reproach, even, than anger in his voice, as he went over and laid his hand on the shoulder of one of them.

“Stay!” he said. “One word with you, Count L'Estrange. What have you done with Leoline!”

“Ah! Sir Norman, as I live!” cried the count wheeling round and lifting his hat. “Give me good even—or rather, good morning—Kingsley, for St. Paul's has long gone the midnight hour.”

Sir Norman, with his hand still on his shoulder, returned not the courtesy, and regarding the gallant count with a stern eye.

“Where is Leoline?” he frigidly repeated.

“Really,” said the count, with some embarrassment, “you attack me so unexpectedly, and so like a ghost or a highwayman—by the way I have a word to say to you about highwaymen, and was seeking you to say it.”

“Where is Leoline?” shouted the exasperated young knight, releasing his shoulder, and clutching him by the throat. “Tell me or, by Heaven! I'll pitch you neck and heels into the Thames!”

Instantly the sword of the count's companion flashed in the moonlight, and, in two seconds more, its blue blade would have ended the earthly career of Sir Norman Kingsley, had not the count quickly sprang back, and made a motion for his companion to hold.

“Wait!” he cried, commandingly, with his arm outstretched to each. “Keep off! George, sheathe your sword and stand aside. Sir Norman Kingsley, one word with you, and be it in peace.”

“There can be no peace between us,” replied that aggravated young gentleman, fiercely “until you tell me what has become of Leoline.”

“All in good time. We have a listener, and does it not strike you our conference should be private!”

“Public or private, it matters not a jot, so that you tell me what you've done with Leoline,” replied Sir Norman, with whom it was evident getting beyond this question was a moral and physical impossibility. “And if you do not give an account of yourself, I'll run you through as sure as your name is Count L'Estrange!”

A strange sort of smile came over the face of the count at this direful threat, as if he fancied in that case, he was safe enough; but Sir Norman, luckily, did not see it, and heard only the suave reply:

“Certainly, Sir Norman; I shall be delighted to do so. Let us stand over there in the shadow of that arch; and, George, do you remain here within call.”

The count blandly waved Sir Norman to follow, which Sir Norman did, with much the mein of a sulky lion; and, a moment after, both were facing each other within the archway.

“Well!” cried the young knight, impatiently; “I am waiting. Go on!”

“My dear Kingsley,” responded the count, in his easy way, “I think you are laboring under a little mistake. I have nothing to go on about; it is you who are to begin the controversy.”

“Do you dare to play with me?” exclaimed Sir Norman, furiously. “I tell you to take care how you speak! What have you done with Leoline?”

“That is the fourth or fifth time that you've asked me that question,” said the count, with provoking indifference. “What do you imagine I have done with her?”

Sir Norman's feelings, which had been rising ever since their meeting, got up to such a height at this aggravating question, that he gave vent to an oath, and laid his hand on his sword; but the count's hand lightly interposed before it came out.

“Not yet, Sir Norman. Be calm; talk rationally. What do you accuse me of doing with Leoline?”

“Do you dare deny having carried her off?”

“Deny it? No; I am never afraid to father my own deeds.”

“Ah!” said Sir Norman grinding his teeth. “Then you acknowledge it?”

“I acknowledge it—yes. What next?”

The perfect composure of his tone fell like a cool, damp towel on the fire of Sir Norman's wrath. It did not quite extinguish the flame, however—only quenched it a little—and it still hissed hotly underneath.

“And you dare to stand before me and acknowledge such an act?” exclaimed Sir Norman, perfectly astounded at the cool assurance of the man.

“Verily, yea,” said the count, laughing. “I seldom take the trouble to deny my acts. What next?”

“There is nothing next,” said Sir Norman, severely, “until we have come to a proper understanding about this. Are you aware, sir, that that lady is my promised bride?”

“No, I do not know that I am. On the contrary, I have an idea she is mine.”

“She was, you mean. You know she was forced into consenting by yourself and her nurse!”

“Still she consented; and a bond is a bond, and a promise a promise, all the world over.”

“Not with a woman,” said Sir Norman, with stern dogmatism. “It is their privilege to break their promise and change their mind sixty times an hour, if they choose. Leoline has seen fit to do both, and has accepted me in your stead; therefore I command you instantly to give her up!”

“Softly, my friend—softly. How was I to know all this?”

“You ought to have known it!” returned Sir Norman, in the same dogmatical way; “or if you didn't, you do now; so say no more about it. Where is she, I tell you?” repeated the young man, in a frenzy.

“Your patience one moment longer, until we see which of us has the best right to the lady. I have a prior claim.”

“A forced one. Leoline does not care a snap far you—and she loves me.”

“What extraordinary bad taste!” said the count, thoughtfully. “Did she tell you that?”

“Yes; she did tell me this, and a great deal more. Come—have done talking, and tell me where she is, or I'll—”

“Oh, no, you wouldn't!” said the count, teasingly. “Since matters stand in this light I'll tell you what I'll do. I acknowledge that I carried off Leoline, viewing her as my promised bride, and have sent her to my own home in the care of a trusty messenger, where I give you my word of honor, I have not been since. She is as safe there, and much safer than in her own house, until morning, and it would be a pity to disturb her at this unseasonable hour. When the morning comes, we will both go to her together—state our rival claims—and whichever one she decides on accepting, can have her, and end the matter at once.”

The count paused and meditated. This proposal was all very plausible and nice on the surface, but Sir Norman with his usual penetration and acuteness, looked farther than the surface, and found a flaw.

“And how am I to know,” he asked, doubtingly, “that you will not go to her to-night and spirit her off where I will never hear of either of you again?”

“In the very best way in the world: we will not part company until morning comes, are we at peace?” inquired the count, smiling and holding out but hand.

“Until then, we will have to be, I suppose,” replied Sir Norman, rather ungraciously taking the hand as if it were red-hot, and dropping it again. “And we are to stand here and rail at each other, in the meantime?”

“By no means! Even the most sublime prospect tires when surveyed too long. There is a little excursion which I would like you to accompany me on, if you have no objection.”

“Where to?”

“To the ruin, where you have already been twice to-night.”

Sir Norman stared.

“And who told you this fact, Sir Count?”

“Never mind; I have heard it. Would you object to a third excursion there before morning?”

Again Sir Norman paused and meditated. There was no use in staying where he was, that would bring him no nearer to Leoline, and nothing was to be gained by killing the count beyond the mere transitory pleasure of the thing. On the other hand, he had an intense and ardent desire to re-visit the ruin, and learn what had become of Miranda—the only draw-back being that, if they were found they would both be most assuredly beheaded. Then, again, there was Hubert.

“Well,” inquired the count, as Sir Norman looked up.

“I have no objection to go with you to the ruin,” was the reply, “only this; if we are seen there, we will be dead men two minutes after; and I have no desire to depart this life until I have had that promised interview with Leoline.”

“I have thought of that,” said the count, “and have provided for it. We may venture in the lion's den without the slightest danger: all that is required being your promise to guide us thither. Do you give it?”

“I do; but I expect a friend here shortly, and cannot start until he comes.”

“If you mean me by that, I am here,” said a voice at his elbow; and, looking round, he saw Hubert himself, standing there, a quiet listener and spectator of the scene.

Count L'Estrange looked at him with interest, and Hubert, affecting not to notice the survey, watched Sir Norman.

“Well,” was that individual's eager address, “were you successful?”

The count was still watching the boy so intently, that that most discreet youth was suddenly seized with a violent fit of coughing, which precluded all possibility of reply for at least five minutes; and Sir Norman, at the same moment, felt his arm receive a sharp and warning pinch.

“Is this your friend?” asked the count. “He is a very small one, and seems in a bad state of health.”

Sir Norman, still under the influence of the pinch, replied by an inaudible murmur, and looked with a deeply mystified expression, at Hubert.

“He bears a strong resemblance to the lady we were talking of a moment ago,” continued the count—“is sufficiently like her, in fact, to be her brother; and, I see wears the livery of the Earl of Rochester.”

“God spare you your eye-sight!” said Sir Norman, impatiently. “Can you not see, among the rest, that I have a few words to say to him in private? Permit us to leave you for a moment.”

“There is no need to do so. I will leave you, as I have a few words to say to the person who is with me.”

So saying the count walked away, and Hubert followed him with a most curious look.

“Now,” cried Sir Norman, eagerly, “what news?”

“Good!” said the boy. “Leoline is safe!”

“And where?”

“Not far from here. Didn't he tell you?”

“The count? No—yes; he said she was at his house.”

“Exactly. That is where she is,” said Hubert, looking much relieved. “And, at present, perfectly safe.”

“And did you see her?”

“Of course; and heard her too. She was dreadfully anxious to come with me; but that was out of the question.”

“And how is she to be got away?”

“That I do not clearly see. We will have to bring a ladder, and there will be so much danger, and so little chance of success, that, to me it seems an almost hopeless task. Where did you meet Count L'Estrange?”

“Here; and he told me that he had abducted her, and held her a prisoner in his own house.”

“He owned that did he? I wonder you were not fit to kill him?”

“So I was, at first, but he talked the matter over somehow.”

And hereupon Sir Norman briefly and quickly rehearsed the substance of their conversation. Hubert listened to it attentively, and laughed as he concluded.

“Well, I do not see that you can do otherwise, Sir Norman, and I think it would be wise to obey the count for to-night, at least. Then to-morrow—if things do not go on well, we can take the law in our own hands.”

“Can we?” said Sir Norman, doubtfully, “I do wish you would tell me who this infernal count is, Hubert, for I am certain you know.”

“Not until to-morrow—you shall know him then.”

“To-morrow! to-morrow!” exclaimed Sir Norman, disconsolately. “Everything is postponed until to-morrow! Oh, here comes the count back again. Are we going to start now, I wonder?”

“Is your friend to accompany us on our expedition?” inquired the count, standing before them. “It shall be quite as you say, Mr. Kingsley.”

“My friend can do as he pleases. What do you say, Hubert?”

“I should like to go, of all things, if neither of you have any objections.”

“Come on, then,” said the count, “we will find horses in readiness a short distance from this.”

The three started together, and walked on in silence through several streets, until they reached a retired inn, where the count's recent companion stood, with the horses. Count L'Estrange whispered a few words to him, upon which he bowed and retired; and in an instant they were all in the saddle, and galloping away.

The journey was rather a silent one, and what conversation there was, was principally sustained by the count. Hubert's usual flow of pertinent chat seemed to have forsaken him, and Sir Norman had so many other things to think of—Leoline, Ormiston, Miranda, and the mysterious count himself—that he felt in no mood for talking. Soon, they left the city behind them; the succeeding two miles were quickly passed over, and the “Golden Crown,” all dark and forsaken, now hove in sight. As they reached this, and cantered up the road leading to the ruin, Sir Norman drew rein, and said:

“I think our best plan would be, to dismount, and lead our horses the rest of the way, and not incur any unnecessary danger by making a noise. We can fasten them to these trees, where they will be at hand when we come out.”

“Wait one moment,” said the count, lifting his finger with a listening look. “Listen to that!”

It was a regular tramp of horses' hoofs, sounding in the silence like a charge of cavalry. While they looked, a troop of horsemen came galloping up, and came to a halt when they saw the count.

No words can depict the look of amazement Sir Norman's face wore; but Hubert betrayed not the least surprise. The count glanced at his companions with a significant smile, and riding back, held a brief colloquy with him who seemed the leader of the horsemen. He rode up to them, smiling still, and saying, as he passed,

“Now then, Kingsley; lead on, and we will follow!”

“I go not one step further,” said Sir Norman, firmly, “until I know who I am leading. Who are you, Count L'Estrange?”

The count looked at him, but did not answer. A warning hand—that of Hubert—grasped Sir Norman's arm; and Hubert's voice whispered hurriedly in his ear:

“Hush, for God's sake! It is the king!”