"Monsieur, it is plain, the murderer was de Coray himself. Oh, mon Dieu! mon Dieu! and I might even have married him." Then, drawing her cloak round her, she signed to the young man to follow her. "There is no time for further speech," she whispered softly; "all explanations, monsieur, I must tell you afterwards; for though it is clear to me that your story needs must be true, yon viper with his crooked tongue may well ensnare my father’s wit and cruel injustice be done. Yet it shall not be; I, Gwennola de Mereac, will save you, monsieur, because—because I love justice, and will not see foul murder done again by yon false and evil man." "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.