.

ESCAPED.
Probably not one of you; my dear friends, who glance graciously over this, was ever shut up in a dungeon under expectation of bearing the unpleasant operation of decapitation within half an hour.

It never happened to myself, either, that I can recollect; so, of course, you or I personally can form no idea what the sensation may be like; but in this particular case, tradition saith Sir Norman Kingsley's state of mind was decidedly depressed.

As the door shut violently, he leaned against it, and listened to his jailers place the great bars into their sockets, and felt he was shut in, in the dreariest, darkest, dismalest, disagreeablest place that it had ever been his misfortune to enter.
He thought of Leoline, and reflected that in all probability she was sleeping the sleep of the just--perhaps dreaming of him, and little knowing that his head was to be cut off in half an hour.
In course of time morning would come--it was not likely the ordinary course of nature would be cut off because he was; and Leoline would get up and dress herself, and looking a thousand times prettier than ever, stand at the window and wait for him.

Ah! she might wait--much good would it do her; about that time he would probably be--where?
It was a rather uncomfortable question, but easily answered, and depressed him to a very desponding degree indeed.
He thought of Ormiston and La Masque--no doubt they were billing and cooing in most approved fashion just then, and never thinking of him; though, but for La Masque and his own folly, he might have been half married by this time.