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,
ho laid his hand on her shoulder, and exclaimed:
"La Masque!"
CHAPTER, XXI.
WHAT WAS BEHIND TWO 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 I Touch me not! Hate me - kill me! I have murdered
your friend!"
Sir Norman recoiled as if from a deadly tent.
"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.
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