“Who is Audry, madam?”
“Audry is my daughter,” answered Mistress Mowbray with her chin very much in the air.
“I thought that child there was Aline Gillespie,” said the priest.
“So it was,” said the lady, calmly.
“But you called her Audry, madam,” he replied, “and told her to speak to Aline.”
“Did I?” she said with well feigned surprise. “You confused me so with your peculiar language.”
Meanwhile Aline ran back to the screens, intending to go through and cross the lower court and slip out over the drawbridge. She might reach the stream and make her way up to the cave before any one clearly grasped what was happening.
But when she came to the further door she was met by a large crowd that had followed the inquisitors and it was useless to try and make headway against it; besides she saw Father Martin’s head appearing above the rest away in the background.
She turned back again with the head of the crowd and half mechanically picked up a staff that was standing in the corner by the door, as she passed into the court. She pushed her way past two men who were armed with swords and were just stepping through the doorway. She might still be able to get into the library and, desperate as the chance was, she hoped to throw them off the scent by breaking a window before going down through the kist to the secret room.
Father Austin was still standing near the bottom of the stair to her chamber. That way was closed; so she ran toward the small flight of steps leading to the little terrace in front of the library.