"
"Madame, there is nothing in the world I would like so much to
hear."
"You shall hear it, then, and it may beguile the last slow
moments of time before you go out into eternity."
She set her lamp down on the floor among the rats and beetles,
and stood watching the small, red flame a moment with a gloomy,
downcast eye; and Sir Norman, gazing on the beautiful darkening
face, so like and yet so unlike Leoline, stood eagerly awaiting
what was to come.
________________
Meantime, the half-hour sped. In the crimson court the last
trial was over, and Lady Castlemaine, a slender little beauty of
eighteen stood condemned to die.
"Now for our other prisoner!" exclaimed the dwarf with sprightly
animation; "and while I go to the cell, you, fair ladies, and you
my lord, will seek the black chamber and await our coming there."
Ordering one of his attendants to precede him with a light, the
dwarf skipped jauntily away, to gloat over his victim. He
reached the dungeon door, which the guards, with some trepidation
in their countenance, as they thought of what his highness would
say when he found her majesty locked in with the prisoner, threw
open.
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