How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
--MACBETH.

"I desire some conference with you." The words were simple in
themselves, but Lord Leicester was in that alarmed and feverish state
of mind when the most ordinary occurrences seem fraught with alarming
import; and he turned hastily round to survey the person by whom
they had been spoken. There was nothing remarkable in the speaker's
appearance, which consisted of a black silk doublet and short mantle,
with a black vizard on his face; for it appeared he had been among the
crowd of masks who had thronged into the hall in the retinue of Merlin,
though he did not wear any of the extravagant disguises by which most of
them were distinguished.

"Who are you, or what do you want with me?" said Leicester, not without
betraying, by his accents, the hurried state of his spirits.

"No evil, my lord," answered the mask, "but much good and honour, if
you will rightly understand my purpose. But I must speak with you more
privately."

"I can speak with no nameless stranger," answered Leicester, dreading he
knew not precisely what from the request of the stranger; "and those
who are known to me must seek another and a fitter time to ask an
interview."

He would have hurried away, but the mask still detained him.

"Those who talk to your lordship of what your own honour demands have a
right over your time, whatever occupations you may lay aside in order to
indulge them."