A sudden thought excited this noble-hearted female. She cautiously approached her companion, who, having discontinued his perambulations, had seated himself in a corner, awaiting the termination of their interview. Knowing that he had generally a hoard of moneys about his person—for covetousness was ever his besetting sin—she ventured to solicit a loan, either for herself or the stranger, judging that Egerton's escape would be much impeded, if, as he had just confessed, his finances were hardly sufficient for his ordinary expenditure.
"And so I must give my blood and my groats to nourish thy sweethearts, wench," said the surly money-lender. "I have saved this prelatist and malignant from his adversaries, and now"——He considered a while, muttering his thoughts and arguments to himself with a most confused and volatile impetuosity of ratiocination. In a short time he seemed to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion through all this obscurity, and drew out a handful of coin, of some low denomination, apparently by the sound, and placed it in the hands of his fair suitor.
"There—there—one, two, three. Never mind, wench; I could have counted 'em once with the best clerkman i' the parish; and for the matter of that, I've told 'em oft enough, though,—but the count always seems to slip from me. It is all I have, save the price of my life; and I would not part with that for a world's worth; for what should it profit me, when with it I had bought my grave?"
Marian immediately transferred the long-hoarded treasure into the hands of the cavalier.
"Thanks; yea, better than these, for they were a poor recompense, my peerless maiden. I scruple not to receive this loan at thine hands, because it is part of the means thou dost employ for my escape. Yet doubt not of my willingness and ability to repay thee tenfold. Thou wilt not deny me this silly suit."
As he said this, he, with the greatest gallantry and devotedness, kissed the hand held forth to supply his exigency. He was accompanying the movement with some fair and courtly speech when a loud and terrible cry startled him. It was more like the howl of some ravenous beast than any sound which human organs ever uttered. Curses followed—horrible, untold—the suggestion of fiends in their bitterness and malignity. Then came the cry, or rather shriek—
"Lost! lost!" at irregular intervals.
The cavalier and his companion were much alarmed by this unexpected occurrence. They doubted not that the foul fiend was before them, bodily, in the form of this poor maniac. After a short interval of silence, he cried, approaching them fiercely—
"Ye have sold me, soul and body, to the wicked one. May curses long and heavy light on ye! The coin! the coin! Oh, that accursed thing! I have bought thy grave, stranger; and my day of hope is past!"
The latter part of the speech was uttered in a tone of such deep and heartrending misery that pity arose in place of terror in the bosom of his auditors. Marian ventured to address him, hoping she might assuage or dissipate the fearful hallucination under which he laboured.