The Hidden Face

When Mr. Malcolm Ormiston, with his usual good sense and penetration,
took himself off, and left Leoline and Sir Norman tete-a-tete, his
steps turned as mechanically as the needle to the North Pole toward La
Masque's house. Before it he wandered, around it he wandered, like an
uneasy ghost, lost in speculation about the hidden face, and fearfully
impatient about the flight of time. If La Masque saw him hovering aloof
and unable to tear himself away, perhaps it might touch her obdurate
heart, and cause her to shorten the dreary interval, and summon him to
her presence at once. Just then some one opened the door, and his heart
began to beat with anticipation; some one pronounced his name, and,
going over, he saw the animated bag of bones--otherwise his lady-love's
vassal and porter.

"La Masque says," began the attenuated lackey, and Ormiston's heart
nearly jumped out of his mouth, "that she can't have anybody hanging
about her house like its shadow; and she wants you to go away, and keep
away, till the time comes she has mentioned."

So saying the skeleton shut the door, and Ormiston's heart went down to
zero. There being nothing for it but obedience, however, he slowly and
reluctantly turned away, feeling in his bones, that if ever he came to
the bliss and ecstasy of calling La Masque Mrs. Ormiston, the gray mare
in his stable would be by long odds the better horse. Unintentionally
his steps turned to the water-side, and he descended the flight of
stairs, determined to get into a boat and watch the illumination from
the river.