"Nay, monsieur," she cried softly, smiling through the tears which filled her soft eyes, "’tis no angel, but only a poor Breton maid who loveth justice and bravery, and who hateth a lie and a false coward. But," she added with a glance half coquettish, half doubtful, "monsieur thanks me too soon; it may be that he will find his refuge less to his liking than his prison, for truly if monsieur hath the fears of many——" She paused, smiling still as she looked at him, hesitating; but as his smile met hers the indecision in her manner passed. "See, monsieur," she said, "I will explain; though let us not delay, lest darkness fall too soon. This refuge to which I take monsieur is but a ruin at best, a ruin of what once was a chapel, very renowned, very beautiful, but for many years, ah! very many, it has ceased to be visited, save by the bats and owls, by reason of a very evil legend, which tells how one of the monks of a monastery hard by committed there a very evil and terrible deed, in punishment of which, seeing he escaped the justice of men, he is condemned to wander for ever in ghostly shape around the chapel where in his days on earth he served as the good God’s servant, and so terrible is the sight of the poor brown friar that none dare pass within sight of the chapel walls, nay, not even in the broad light of day, for fear of encountering so dread a spectre; therefore monsieur will be safe if, if——" "I fear the monk’s spectre less than thy kinsman’s treachery and thy father’s rope," smiled Henri d’Estrailles. "Nay, mademoiselle, how can the sight of so harmless a spirit affright when I wear so sweet an amulet?" "An amulet?" she questioned, looking with curious eyes into his. "Ay," he replied softly, "the amulet, mademoiselle, of a brave maiden’s aid and the tender memory of sweet eyes." "Nay," she said hastily, drawing her hood over her hair again, with a shy bashfulness, to hide perchance her blushes, "monsieur must remember that I but aid him, because—because——" "Ay—because?" he questioned eagerly, as he bent to look into the downcast face. "Because?" "See, monsieur," she said hastily, pointing towards an opening in the path which they were treading; "yonder is the place. Mary, Mother, protect us!" and she crossed herself rapidly as, with half-scared looks, she pointed to the rugged outline of a half-ruined chapel which stood on the very outskirts of the forest, sheltered only by a thick belt of trees from a wide stretch of moorland which lay, scarcely visible from where they stood, on their left. Behind them, in the rapidly darkening thicket, rose the murmurous cries of the forest creatures; but in the open space around the ruin the flickering rays of the waning moon shone clear. Wild and desolate was the spot, ghostly and weird the hour, yet Henri d’Estrailles smiled as he turned from scanning the refuge thus found to the trembling girl at his side.