"But, mademoiselle?" said d'Estrailles in surprise. "What is your will? The good father——"
"The good father knoweth not everything," she replied imperiously; "for the rest, monsieur, you may ask questions later, but at present we have but four minutes ere the too anxious father returns to bear you off to confession."
She smiled up at his questioning face, and the beauty of it, seen but dimly from under the now close-drawn hood, set his pulses tingling and his heart throbbing in a way to which even the sense of his present perilous position had failed to stir them.
Silently, however, in obedience to her command, he followed the slender, cloaked figure, though his surprise deepened as the raising of a piece of heavy tapestry disclosed a small postern door.
"Do not speak," whispered Gwennola's soft voice in his ear, "until I bid you, and keep close beside me, monsieur, for your life."
Out into the moonlight they crept as she finished speaking, a waning light now as the great silver orb sank westwards, flinging more fickle shafts of pale glory over the shadowed landscape. Yet treacherous and fickle though she was, the Queen of Night smiled kindly for once on the two fugitives, and sent no searching rays to inquire wherefore those blacker shadows amongst shadows moved so haltingly down the broad terraces and across the little bridge which spanned the river. How still the night was and how beautiful!
So fascinating indeed had Job Alloadec found the contemplation of the starry heavens overhead that he had no eyes for shadows, stationary or otherwise, and so enchanting were the low, weird cries which filled the forest yonder, where bird and beast sought their nightly prey, that the good Job's ears were equally deaf to the sound of stealthy footsteps which passed him by, though, as the tail of one vaguely innocent eye glanced sideways towards the river, Job crossed himself, murmuring: "By our Blessed Lady, it cannot be that it is the little mademoiselle herself?" And thereafter his faithful ears listened the more keenly for any sound other than the distant cries of the wolves and low melancholy note of the owl which rose from time to time from the neighbouring woods.
"Tiens! monsieur," murmured Gwennola, as they paused at last under the safe shelter of the thicket. "Let us pause; your wound—ah, monsieur, it, I fear me, causes you much pain."
"Nay," muttered d'Estrailles with white lips. "'Tis only a passing spasm; but, mademoiselle, the pain is naught compared to my wonderment, my gratitude, yet——" He hesitated, as Gwennola, throwing back her hood, laughed merrily up into his astonished yet doubting face.
"See, monsieur," she cried, the dare-devil light of triumph dancing in her blue eyes. "You doubt! you wonder! You say to yourself, 'She is mad, this demoiselle of Brittany, who brings a sick man into a desolate forest, from whence it is impossible to flee from his enemies'; and yet, monsieur, though doubtless it is mad, this scheme of mine, it is more sensible than it appears. Yonder then is your horse, whom we must approach cautiously, for I would not that he proclaimed his master's presence. 'But,' you say to yourself, 'what use is even my good horse to me in this present plight? for, did I attempt to mount, my wound would give me such pain that I should fall swooning to the ground.' Doubtless monsieur is right. But, see, I do not say, 'Mount, ride, monsieur, it is finished, my scheme.' No, I say instead, 'Let us hasten a little way through this dreary forest, you and I and the good steed, and it will chance that we come in time to a spot more lonely and desolate than any in all the region round; here we shall find shelter—poor and strange it may appear, but the gracious saints will have monsieur in their fair keeping, and so it shall be that he will be safe from his enemies until such time as he is able to mount and ride on his way.'"