“Ah! it's you, Sir Norman! I had given up all notion of your coming, and was about to quit this confounded babel--this tumultuous den of thieves. What has detained you?” “I was on duty at Whitehall. Are we not in time to keep our appointment?” “Oh, certainly! La Masque is at home to visitors at all hours, day and night. I believe in my soul she doesn't know what sleep means.” “And you are still as much in love with her as ever, I dare swear! I have no doubt, now, it was of her you were thinking when I came up. Nothing else could ever have made you look so dismally woebegone as you did, when Providence sent me to your relief.” “I was thinking of her,” said the young man moodily, and with a darkening brow. Sir Norman favored him with a half-amused, half-contemptuous stare for a moment; then stopped at a huckster's stall to purchase some cigarettes; lit one, and after smoking for a few minutes, pleasantly remarked, as if the fact had just struck him: “Ormiston, you're a fool!” “I know it!” said Ormiston, sententiously. “The idea,” said Sir Norman, knocking the ashes daintily off the end of his cigar with the tip of his little finger--“the idea of falling in love with a woman whose face you have never seen! I can understand a man a going to any absurd extreme when he falls in love in proper Christian fashion, with a proper Christian face; but to go stark, staring mad, as you have done, my dear fellow, about a black loo mask, why--I consider that a little too much of a good thing! Come, let us go.” Nodding easily to his numerous acquaintances as he went, Sir Norman Kingsley sauntered leisurely down Paul's Walk, and out through the great door of the cathedral, followed by his melancholy friend. Pausing for a moment to gaze at the gorgeous sunset with a look of languid admiration, Sir Norman passed his arm through that of his friend, and they walked on at rather a rapid pace, in the direction of old London Bridge. There were few people abroad, except the watchmen walking slowly up and down before the plague-stricken houses; but in every street they passed through they noticed huge piles of wood and coal heaped down the centre. Smoking zealously they had walked on for a season in silence, when Ormiston ceased puffing for a moment, to inquire: “What are all these for? This is a strange time, I should imagine, for bonfires.”