out at the last gasp. I wonder if your pretty mistress would
feel grateful if she knew what I have come through to-night for her
sweet sake?"

"There are no lights," said Sir Norman, glancing anxiously up at the
darkened front of the house; "even the link before the door is unlit.
Surely she cannot be there."

"That remains to be seen, though I'm very doubtful about it myself. Ah!
whom have we here?"

The door of the house in question opened, as he spoke, and a figure--a
man's figure, wearing a slouched hat and long, dark cloak, came slowly
out. He stopped before the house and looked at it long and earnestly;
and, by the twinkling light of the lamps, the friends saw enough of him
to know he was young and distinguished looking.

"I should not wonder in the least if that were the bridegroom,"
whispered Ormiston, maliciously.

Sir Norman turned pale with jealousy, and laid his hand on his sword,
with a quick and natural impulse to make the bride a widow forthwith.
But he checked the desire for an instant as the brigandish-looking
gentleman, after a prolonged stare at the premises, stepped up to the
watchman, who had given them their information an hour or two before,
and who was still at his post. The friends could not be seen, but they
could hear, and they did so very earnestly indeed.

"Can you tell me, my friend," began the cloaked unknown, "what has
become of the people residing in yonder house?"

The watchman, held his lamp up to the face of the interlocutor--a
handsome face by the way, what could be seen of it--and indulged himself
in a prolonged survey.

"Well!" said the gentleman, impatiently, "have you no tongue, fellow?
Where are they, I say?"

"Blessed if I know," said the watchman. "I, wasn't set here to keep
guard over them was I? It looks like it, though," said the man in
parenthesis; "for this makes twice to-night I've been asked questions
about it."

"Ah!" said the gentleman, with a slight start. "Who asked you before,
pray?"

"Two young gentlemen; lords, I expect, by their dress. Somebody ran
screaming out of the house, and they wanted to know what was wrong."

"Well?" said the stranger, breathlessly, "and then?"

"And then, as I couldn't tell them they went in to see for themselves,
and shortly after came out with a body wrapped in a sheet, which they
put in a pest-cart going by, and had it buried, I suppose, with the rest
in the plague-pit."

The stranger fairly staggered back, and cau