“Oh, no! I hope Leoline has a long and happy life before her. But the wretched, guilty sister I mean is, myself; for I, too, Sir Norman, am her sister.”
At this new disclosure, Sir Norman stood perfectly petrified; and La Masque, looking down at the dreadful place at her feet, went rapidly on:
“Alas and alas! that it should be so; but it is the direful truth. We bear the same name, we had the same father; and yet I have been the curse and bane of their lives.”
“And Leoline knows this?”
“She never knew it until this night, or any one else alive; and no one should know it now, were not my ghastly life ending. I prayed her to forgive me for the wrong I have done her; and she may, for she is gentle and good—but when, when shall I be able to forgive myself?”
The sharp pain in her voice jarred on Sir Norman's ear and heart; and, to get rid of its dreary echo, he hurriedly asked:
“You say you bear the same name. May I ask what name that is?”
“It is one, Sir Norman Kingsley, before which your own ancient title pales. We are Montmorencis, and in our veins runs the proudest blood in France.”
“Then Leoline is French and of noble birth?” said Sir Norman, with a thrill of pleasure. “I loved her for herself alone, and would have wedded her had she been the child of a beggar; but I rejoice to hear this nevertheless. Her father, then, bore a title?”
“Her father was the Marquis de Montmorenci, but Leoline's mother and mine were not the same—had they been, the lives of all four might have been very different; but it is too late to lament that now. My mother had no gentle blood in her veins, as Leoline's had, for she was but a fisherman's daughter, torn from her home, and married by force. Neither did she love my father notwithstanding his youth, rank, and passionate love for her, for she was betrothed to another bourgeois, like herself. For his sake she refused even the title of marchioness, offered her in the moment of youthful and ardent passion, and clung, with deathless truth, to her fisher-lover. The blood of the Montmorencis is fierce and hot, and brooks no opposition” (Sir Norman thought of Miranda, and inwardly owned that that was a fact); “and the marquis, in his jealous wrath, both hated and loved her at the same time, and vowed deadly vengeance against her bourgeois lover. That vow he kept. The young fisherman was found one morning at his lady-love's door without a head, and the bleeding trunk told no tales.