This was a little too much for Sir Norman's overwrought feelings, and in the last degree of exasperation, he laid violent hands on the collar of Ormiston's doublet, and shook him as if he would have shaken the name out with a jerk. “I tell you what it is, Ormiston, you had better not aggravate me! I can stand a good deal, but I'm not exactly Moses or Job, and you had better mind what you're at. If you don't come to the point at once, and tell me who I she is, I'll throttle you where you stand; and so give you warning.” Half-indignant, and wholly laughing, Ormiston stepped back out of the way of his excited friend. “I cry you mercy! In one word, then, I have been dispatched by a lady in search of you, and that lady is--Leoline.” It has always been one of the inscrutable mysteries in natural philosophy that I never could fathom, why men do not faint. Certain it is, I never yet heard of a man swooning from excess of surprise or joy, and perhaps that may account for Sir Norman's not doing so on the present occasion. But he came to an abrupt stand-still in their rapid career; and if it had not been quite so excessively dark, his friend would have beheld a countenance wonderful to look on, in its mixture of utter astonishment and sublime consternation. “Leoline!” he faintly gasped. “Just stop a moment, Ormiston, and say that again--will you?” “No,” said Ormiston, hurrying unconcernedly on; “I shall do no such thing, for there is no time to lose, and if there were I have no fancy for standing in this dismal road. Come on, man, and I'll tell you as we go.” Thus abjured, and seeing there was no help for it, Sir Norman, in a dazed and bewildered state, complied; and Ormiston promptly and briskly relaxed into business. “You see, my dear fellow, to begin at the beginning, after you left, I stood at ease at La Masque's door, awaiting that lady's return, and was presently rewarded by seeing her come up with an old woman called Prudence. Do you recollect the woman who rushed screaming out of the home of the dead bride?” “Yes, yes!” “Well, that was Prudence. She and La Masque were talking so earnestly they did not perceive me, and I--well, the fact is, Kingsley, I stayed and listened. Not a very handsome thing, perhaps, but I couldn't resist it. They were talking of some one they called Leoline, and I, in a moment, knew that it was your flame, and that neither of them knew any more of her whereabouts than we did.” “And yet La Masque told me to come here in search of her,” interrupted Sir Norman. “Very true! That was odd--wasn't it? This Prudence, it appears, was Leoline's nurse, and La Masque, too, seemed to have a certain authority over her; and between them, I learned she was to have been married this very night, and died--or, at least, Prudence thought so--an hour or two before the time.” “Then she was not married?” cried Sir Norman, in an ecstasy of delight.