"Henri," she cried, and in the silence her voice seemed to ring shrill and clear, "Henri!"
A vague note of terror rang in the cry as she hurried with panting breath towards the ruin itself, telling herself that he might perchance have fallen asleep in his hiding-place. But no; no answer was returned to her cries; the chamber under the altar was empty and deserted. For a moment she stood there, paralyzed with fear, yet scarcely realizing what could have happened. It could not be that he was taken? She put the idea from her in agony. No, no, not that! How foolish she was!—how could he have been taken without the knowledge of Job or Marie? All day neither her father nor de Coray had left the castle, not even for their favourite hawking or boar hunting; no whisper of suspicion had been breathed in the hearing of either of her faithful servants; it had seemed, so Marie said, that all thought—if they thought at all—that the French knight had long since ridden away far beyond pursuit. Then a hundred eager suggestions filled her mind: he had gone to meet her as she came, and had missed his way; or perhaps, learning of some new danger, had been forced to fly without awaiting her coming. But a hurried search of the shed close by convinced her at least of the futility of this last idea, for Rollo still stood in his place, turning with a low whinny of inquiry to see if it was his master who had come with his evening meal.
"Alas! alas!" moaned Gwennola, fresh fears assailing her, as she turned once more towards the gloomy ruin, "what hath chanced? Oh, wherefore heeded he not my warning to fly yesternight? Ah, if——" She had stooped, with the last words on her lips, and, with the confirmation of her fears before her, raised from the ground a tiny cap decorated with one tiny bell—it was the cap of Petit Pierre, the fool's ape. "He is taken," whispered the girl to herself in a dull, unrealizing tone; "he is taken."
With dawning comprehension she gazed round with a shiver, picturing the scene which, like the vision of a crystal-gazer, began slowly but clearly to rise before her.
Here he had waited for her, unconscious of danger, with a smile on his lips and the love-light in his eyes, perchance in his folly humming the air of a ballad, as he had yesternight. Then through the trees treachery had stolen upon him, and where he had looked to see love, death himself had stalked grimly on the scene. She shuddered, covering her face with her hands, as if to shut out the sight of some terrible phantom. Yet for all that her restless brain conjured up before her unwilling eyes fresh scenes of terror; her father, stern, implacable, revengeful, as he remembered the fair-haired boy so cruelly done to death in that far-off wood of St Aubin, and beside him the true perpetrator of the deed, smiling, triumphant, full of cruel and evil suggestions and words, with the cunning, vacant face of Pierre the fool, gleeful at the part he had been doubtless paid to play, at his elbow; whilst the background was filled up with grim, curious faces, pitiless, for the most part, save where Job and Marie Alloadec stood fearful, and perchance weeping, yet not for his sake, but for hers. Alas! not one there to pity him, to look kindly on him; he was alone, surrounded by cruel enemies, with death standing in the shadows beside him—death, in all its hideous garb, without even the golden glamour of glory to hide its mocking features. A resolve to hasten back to the château and to stand beside the man she loved overcame the sense of faintness which at first threatened her, but even as she rose, with that aching pain of sorrow, too deep for tears, at her heart, a cold touch on her hand sent the blood throbbing back with a sudden frenzy of fear. The memory of the unrepentant friar who so grimly strolled around the earthly scene of his sins came vividly before her, and as she bent her eyes she fully expected to see them rest upon the shadowy cowl of the chapel's ghostly inhabitant. Instead it was the lean, grey form of the wolf-hound Gloire on which her eyes fell, meeting the beast's dumb, affectionate gaze with the thrill which sympathy in distress ever brings, even if that sympathy is but a dog's—perchance at times a truer and more helpful one than his human master's.
"Gloire," she whispered, bending down with a sudden impulse to kiss the shaggy, faithful head. "Ah, Gloire, how camest thou hither? Was it because thou knewest—wise beast!—that thy mistress was in sore need of a comforter, and alone in this terrible place, with a heart which, I fear me, must break ere dawn?"
The great animal whined as it licked her face, then suddenly drew back with a low, ominous growl as a rustle of branches near caught their ears. In an instant Gloire was transformed from the sympathizer into the outraged guardian, his grey hairs bristling, his teeth gleaming white from drawn-back gums, his whole aspect one of angry antagonism. But the quick footsteps, instead of coming up the path towards them, had turned aside, as if their owner were hastening towards the open heath beyond the forest. But Gloire was not minded to let even an unseen intruder go without his passport of approval, and, breaking loose from the gentle, restraining hand of his mistress, leapt forward, with an angry bay, in pursuit.
"Gloire, Gloire, come back!" cried Gwennola softly, in much alarm, as she hastened forward in the direction which the great hound had taken. "Shame on thee, Gloire! return instantly."
But Gloire was little minded to obey the gentle command, for he had already reached the open, and his quarry was in view.
It was a wild, picturesque scene, with a weird grimness in it which was to remain ever imprinted on Gwennola's memory. The clear moonlight shone over the vast tract of heath with the radiance of day, clumps of broom and gorse here and there casting black shadows in the white light. No sign of habitation was visible, naught seeming to flourish in this desolate region saving only briars and thistles. Here and there piles of stone, almost druidical in shape, lay scattered about, these, the people of the country affirming to be the houses of the Torrigans or Courils, wanton dwarfs, who at night bar your road, and force you to dance with them until you die of fatigue, whilst others declare that they are fairies, who, descending from the mountains, spinning, have brought away these rocks in their aprons. For the most part these shapeless monuments consisted of three or four standing stones with another laid flat on the top, and, seen by moonlight, presented a fantastic appearance, dotted as they were over the barren heath.