The count had given the order to start, the moment they had left the ruin, and the conversation had been carried on while riding at a break-neck gallop. Sir Norman thanked him for his offer, and they rode in silence until they reached the city, and their paths diverged; Sir Norman's leading to the apothecary's shop where he had left Ormiston, and the count's leading--he best knew where. George--the attendant referred to--joined the knight, and leaving his horse in his care, Sir Norman entered the shop, and encountered the spectral proprietor at the door. “What of my friend?” was his eager inquiry. “Has he yet shown signs of returning consciousness?” “Alas, no!” replied the apothecary, with a groan, that came wailing up like a whistle; “he was so excessively dead, that there was no use keeping him; and as the room was wanted for other purposes, I--pray, my dear sir, don't look so violent--I put him in the pest-cart and had him buried.” “In the plague-pit!” shouted Sir Norman, making a spring at him; but the man darted off like a ghostly flash into the inner room, and closed and bolted the door in a twinkling. Sir Norman kicked at it spitefully, but it resisted his every effort; and, overcoming a strong temptation to smash every bottle in the shop, he sprang once more into the saddle, and rode off to the plague-pit. It was the second time within the last twelve hours he had stood there; and, on the previous occasion, he who now lay in it, had stood by his side. He looked down, sickened and horror-struck. Perhaps, before another morning, he, too, might be there; and, feeling his blood run cold at the thought, he was turning away, when some one came rapidly up, and sank down with a moaning gasping cry on its very edge. That shape--tall and slender, and graceful--he well knew; and, leaning over her, he laid his hand on her shoulder, and exclaimed: “La Masque!” CHAPTER, XXI. WHAT WAS BEHIND THE MASK. The cowering form rose up; but, seeing who it was, sank down again, with its face groveling in the dust, and with another prolonged, moaning cry. “Madame Masque!” he said, wonderingly; “what is this?” He bent to raise her; but, with a sort of scream she held out her arms to keep him back. “No, no, no! Touch me not! Hate me--kill me! I have murdered your friend!” Sir Norman recoiled as if from a deadly serpent. “Murdered him! Madame, in Heaven's name, what have you said?” “Oh, I have not stabbed him, or poisoned him, or shot him; but I am his murderer, nevertheless!” she wailed, writhing in a sort of gnawing inward torture. “Madame, I do not understand you at all! Surely you are raving when you talk like this.” Still moaning on the edge of the plague-pit, she half rose up, with both hands clasped tightly over her heart, as if she would have held back from all human ken the anguish that was destroying her,