"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 oft 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.