That voice! I have had heard it a thousand times! It had evidently been disguised before; but now, in the excitement of the moment, the stranger was thrown off his guard, and it became perfectly familiar.

But where had he heard it?
For the life of him, Sir Norman could not tell, yet it was as well known to him as his own.

It had the tone, too, of one far more used to command than entreaty; and Sir Norman, instead of getting angry, as he felt he ought to have done, mechanically answered: "The watchman told you of the two young men who brought her out and laid her in the dead-cart--I was one of the two." "And who was the other ?" "A friend of mine--one Malcolm Ormiston." "Ah! I know him! Pardon my abruptness, Sir Norman," said the stranger, once more speaking in his assumed suave tone, "but I feel deeply on this subject, and was excited at the moment.

You spoke of her being brought to the house of a friend--now, who may that friend be, for I was not aware that she had any ?" "So I judged," said Sir Norman, rather bitterly, "or she would not have been left to die alone of the plague.

She was brought to my house, sir, and I am the friend who would have stood by her to the last!" Sir Norman sat up very straight and haughty on his horse; and had it been daylight, he would have seen a slight derisive smile pass over the lips of his companion.
"I have always heard that Sir Norman Kingsley was a chivalrous knight," he said; "but I scarcely dreamed his gallantry would have carried him so far as to brave death by the pestilence for the sake of an unknown lady--however beautiful.