manner the air and deportment of the gallants who had formerly thronged the place.  No attempt being made to maintain silence, the noise was perfectly stunning; some of the sick were shrieking—­some laughing in a wild unearthly manner—­some praying—­some uttering loud execrations—­others groaning and lamenting.  The holy building seemed to have become the abode of evil and tormented spirits.  Many dead were lying in the beds—­the few attendants who were present not caring to remove them; and Leonard had little doubt, that before another sun went down the whole of the ghastly assemblage before him would share their fate.  If the habitations he had recently gazed upon had appeared plague-stricken, the sacred structure in which he was now standing seemed yet more horribly contaminated.  Ill-kept and ill-ventilated, the air was loaded with noxious effluvia, while the various abominations that met the eye at every turn would have been sufficient to produce the distemper in any one who had come in contact with them.  They were, however, utterly disregarded by the miserable sufferers and their attendants.  The magnificent painted windows were dimmed by a thick clammy steam, which could scarcely be washed off—­while the carved oak screens, the sculptured tombs, the pillars, the walls, and the flagged floors were covered with impurities.

Satisfied with a brief survey of this frightful scene, Leonard turned to depart, and was passing the entrance to Saint Faith’s, which stood open, when he caught sight of Judith standing at the foot of the broad stone steps, and holding a lamp in her hand.  She was conversing with a tall richly-dressed man, whose features he fancied he had seen before, though he could not at the moment call them to mind.  After a brief conversation, they moved off into the depths of the vault, and he lost eight of them.  All at once it occurred to Leonard that Judith’s companion was the unfortunate stranger whose child he had interred, and who had been so strangely affected at the sight of Nizza Macascree.  Determined to ascertain the point, he hurried down the steps and plunged into the vault.  It was buried in profound darkness, and he had not proceeded far when he stumbled over something lying in his path, and found from the groan that followed that it was a plague-patient.  Before he could regain his feet, the unfortunate sufferer whom he had thus disturbed implored him, in piteous accents, which, with a shudder, he recognised as those of Blaize, to remove him.  Leonard immediately gave the poor porter to understand that he was near him, and would render him every aid in his power.

“Your assistance comes too late, Leonard,” groaned Blaize—­“it’s all over with me now, but I don’t like to breathe my last in this dismal vault, without medicine or food, both of which I am denied by that infernal hag Mother Malmayns, who calls herself a nurse, but who is in reality a robber and murderess.  Oh! the frightful scenes I have witnessed since I have been brought here!  I told you I should not escape the plague.  I shall die of it—­I am sure I shall.”