The first sight startled and horrified her; but she did not pause to gaze at it, till she had entered the chapel and closed the iron gate, as if for protection; but then she stood and watched the flames for a moment or two, and at length asked herself what she should do.
"I will go back," she answered, after a moment's thought. "I will not be absent from my poor aunt's side at such a moment;" and she turned to seek the door into the passage. Then, for the first time, she perceived that it was closed, and recollected the warning of the abbess to leave it ajar. She now felt really terrified; and that need of protection and help, that want of something to lean upon and to trust in, which most women experience in the hour of danger, made itself terribly felt.
"What will become of me? Where shall I go? What shall I do?" she murmured anxiously; and then, again and again, cast a timid glance at the burning buildings on the opposite side of the dell. "I will go to Boyd's house," she said at length. "I can find protection there."
But suddenly she remembered what he had said, in regard to the time he should be occupied in providing for the safety of the bishop; but her determination was at length expressed--"I shall be more safe there than here at all events. I will go;" and, without further hesitation, she crept back into the path again.
Iola now knew for the first time in life, perhaps, what it is to fear, and how the imagination is excited by apprehension. The sight of the burning buildings had shaken her nerves. She crept along as stealthily as if she feared that every tree was an enemy. She thought she heard sounds too, near at hand as she went on, and then tried to persuade herself that it was but the waving of the trees in the wind. Then she felt sure that somebody must be near; she quickened her pace to reach a path which turned suddenly to the right; but at the very entrance, when she reached it, there was standing a figure, the form of which she could not distinctly see; but it seemed tall and thin, and garmented all in white, according to the popular idea of a phantom. She recoiled in terror, and would have fled back again; but there directly in her way was another figure; and a voice exclaimed, as she was turning once more to fly--
"Lady, lady, whither away? Stay yet a moment--stay, it is a friend."
She thought she knew the tones; but, as the stranger approached, she receded, asking--
"Who is it? Who is it?"
"It is Lord Chartley," he said. "Stay, stay! You are running upon danger."
The last words were needless; for, before they were fully uttered, Iola had not only stopped but sprung forward to meet him.