"A pleasant prospect; but a true one, I have no doubt. And, as I have no
ambition to be hurled headlong into one of those horrible holes, I shall
leave town altogether in a few days. And, Ormiston, I would strongly
recommend you to follow my example."
"Not I!" said Ormiston, in a tone of gloomy resolution. "While La Masque
stays, so will I."
"And perhaps die of the plague in a week."
"So be it! I don't fear the plague half as much as I do the thought of
losing her!"
Again Sir Norman stared.
"Oh, I see! It's a hopeless case! Faith, I begin to feel curious to see
this enchantress, who has managed so effectually to turn your brain.
When did you see her last?"
"Yesterday," said Ormiston, with a deep sigh. "And if she were made of
granite, she could not be harder to me than she is!"
"So she doesn't care about you, then?"
"Not she! She has a little Blenheim lapdog, that she loves a thousand
times more than she ever will me!"
"Then what an idiot you are, to keep haunting her like her shadow! Why
don't you be a man, and tear out from your heart such a goddess?"
"Ah! that's easily said; but if you were in my place, you'd act exactly
as I do."
"I don't believe it. It's not in me to go mad about anything with a
masked face and a marble heart. If I loved any woman--which, thank
Fortune! at this present time I do not--and she had the bad taste not
to return it, I should take my hat, make her a bow, and go directly and
love somebody else made of flesh and blood, instead of cast iron! You
know the old song, Ormiston: 'If she be not fair for me
What care I how fair she be!'"
"Kingsley, you know nothing about it!" said Ormiston, impatiently. "So
stop talking nonsense. If you are cold-blooded, I am not; and--I love
her!"
Sir Norman slightly shrugged his shoulders, and flung his smoked-out
weed into a heap of fire-wood.
"Are we near her house?" he asked. "Yonder is the bridge."
"And yonder is the house," replied Ormiston, pointing to a large
ancient building--ancient even for those times--with three stories, each
projecting over the other. "See! while the houses on either side are
marked as pest-stricken, hers alone bears no cross. So it is: those
who cling to life are stricken with death: and those who, like me, are
desperate, even death shuns."