the Landgrave that The Masque was just on the point of
entering the seneschal's room. No other door was heard to open; and he felt
assured that he had seen the lofty figure of The Masque gliding into that
apartment He again quickened his steps; a light burned within, the door stood
ajar; quietly the Prince pushed it open, and entered with the fullest assurance
that he should here at length overtake the object of his pursuit.
    Great was his consternation upon finding in a room which presented, no
outlet not a living creature except the elderly seneschal, who lay quietly
sleeping in his arm-chair. The first impulse of the Prince was to awaken him
roughly, that he might summon aid and co-operate in the search. One glance at a
paper upon the table arrested his hand. He saw a name written there, interesting
to his fears beyond all others in the world. His eye was riveted as by
fascination to the paper. He read one instant. That satisfied him that the old
seneschal must be overcome by no counterfeit slumbers, when he could thus
surrender a secret of capital importance to the gaze of that eye from which
above all others he must desire to screen it. One moment he deliberated with
himself; the old man stirred, and muttered in his dreams; the Landgrave seized
the paper, and stood irresolute for an instant whether to await his wakening,
and authoritatively to claim what so nearly concerned his own interest, or to
retreat with it from the room before the old man should be aware of the Prince's
visit, or his own loss.
    But the seneschal, wearied perhaps with some unusual exertion, had but moved
in his chair; again he composed himself to deep slumber, made deeper by the
warmth of a hot fire. The raving of the wind, as it whistled round this angle of
the schloss, drowned all sounds that could have disturbed him. The Landgrave
secreted the paper; nor did any sense of his rank and character interpose to
check him in an act so unworthy of an honourable cavalier. Whatever crimes he
had hitherto committed or authorized, this was perhaps the first instance in
which he had offended by an instance of petty knavery. He retired with the
stealthy pace of a robber anxious to evade detection; and stole back to his own
apartments with an overpowering interest in the discovery he had made so
accidentally, and with an anxiety to investigate it farther, which absorbed for
the time all other cares, and banished from his thoughts even The Masque
himself, whose sudden appearance and retreat had in fact thrown into his hands
the