By a natural impulse, Iola clasped her fair hands together, and uttered a low exclamation of fear; but the bishop gazed calmly forth for a moment, and then said--
"We had better hasten on our way, my child. Extinguish the lamp--Here, set it down here. We must not show ourselves more than we we can help, lest any eye should be turned this way."
"We must pass through the grate," said Iola, recalled to herself by the prelate's words; "for there is no other way out; but if we run quickly round to the back of the building, no one will see us."
"Let us go one at a time," said the bishop. "It is well to take every precaution, though I do not think the light is sufficiently strong to show us to those on the opposite side of the valley."
"Turn sharp to the right," said Iola, opening the iron grate, for the prelate to pass through; and, as soon as he was gone, she followed and rejoined him at the back of the building. "Now this way, this way," she continued hastily, anxious to lead him away from dangers, the imminence of which seemed now for the first time to strike her; and guiding him along one of the forest paths, she hurried on with a quick step, saying with one of her gay short laughs:
"They would not easily find us here. I could lead them through such a labyrinth that they would not know which way to turn to get out."
"You seem to know the forest well, daughter," said the bishop, in a good-humoured tone. "I fear me you have been fonder of rambling in the woods than conning dry lessons in the abbey of St. Clare."
He spoke in a gay and kindly manner, which conveyed no reproof; but Iola blushed a little while she answered--
"Surely! My dear aunt has not been very severe with me; and every day, when the sun was bright and the skies blue, I have gone out--sometimes with my girl Alice, sometimes alone, sometimes on foot, sometimes on a mule, sometimes to bear a message to woodman or tenant, sometimes for pure idleness. And yet not pure idleness either, my lord; for I do not know why, but amidst these old trees and upon the top of the hill, where I catch a view of all the woods and fields and rivers below, bright and beautiful and soft, it seems as if my heart rose up to Heaven more lightly than under the vault of the chapel and amongst its tall columns of stone. Then sometimes I sit beneath a spreading oak, and look at its giant limbs, and compare them with the wild anemone that grows at its foot, and lose myself in musing over the everlasting variety that I see. But hark! those voices are very loud. They cannot be coming nearer, surely."
"You are brave at a distance, daughter," said the bishop calmly; "but be not alarmed. They are only raised a little higher."