“And yet La Masque told you she was two miles from the city, in the haunted ruin; and La Masque most assuredly knows.”
“I have no doubt she is there. I shall not be the least astonished if I find her in every street between this and Newgate.”
“Really, it is a most singular affair! First you see her in the magic caldron; then we find her dead; then, when within an ace of being buried, she comes to life; then we leave her lifeless as a marble statue, shut up in your room, and fifteen minutes after, she vanishes as mysteriously as a fairy in a nursery legend. And, lastly, she turns up in the shape of a court-page, and swaggers along London Bridge at this hour of the night, chanting a love song. Faith! it would puzzle the sphinx herself to read this riddle, I've a notion!”
“I, for one, shall never try to read it,” said Sir Norman. “I am about tired of this labyrinth of mysteries, and shall save time and La Masque to unravel them at their leisure.”
“Then you mean to give up the pursuit?”
“Not exactly. I love this mysterious beauty too well to do that; and when next I find her, be it where it may, I shall take care she does not slip so easily through my fingers.”
“I cannot forget that page,” said Ormiston, musingly. “It is singular since, he wears the Earl of Rochester's livery, that we have never seen him before among his followers. Are you quite sure, Sir Norman, that you have not?”
“Seen him? Don't be absurd, Ormiston! Do you think I could ever forget such a face as that?”
“It would not be easy, I confess. One does not see such every day. And yet—and yet—it is most extraordinary!”
“I shall ask Rochester about him the first thing to-morrow; and unless he is an optical illusion—which I vow I half believe is the case—I will come at the truth in spite of your demoniac friend, La Masque!”