“Where are you taking me? Answer, or I shall refuse to go another step with you!” she exclaimed, now thoroughly aroused and determined. “My wagon is hitched in the wood over there. In it we will go to a town up the valley, where I have the promise of help. I could have brought a big force of men with me, but don't you see what a mistake it would have been? Rather than surrender you to a force they would have killed you and secreted your body in the passages under the castle. It is commonly known that the cellars are paved with skeletons.” Here Dorothy shuddered in recollection. “Strategy was the only means of getting you out safely.” “They would not have killed me,” she cried, breathlessly. They were moving rapidly along the level roadway now, and his grip on her wrist was like a clasp of iron. “To save themselves? Of course, they would--as they would a dog!” he said. “They are my friends, and they are the best, the truest in the world,” she gasped, eager to keep the promise of protection made in the farewell note. “You think they are, madam, but how could they treat you as they have if they are friends?” He had turned into the wood, and it was necessary to proceed more cautiously on account of the darkness. She realized that she had erred in saying they were friends, and turned cold with apprehension. “I mean, they treated me well--for criminals,” she managed to say. “Criminals!” he snarled. “Bah! Of course they are criminals of the worst kind, but they will never be punished.” “I'm afraid they are so clever that no one will ever find out who they really are.” He stopped with a lurch, and she could feel that he was looking at her in amazement. “I know who they are, and you know them, too,” he said, slowly. “Perhaps nobody else knows, but we know that my Lord and Lady Saxondale and the two Americans were your abductors. The man I dumped into the ravine was that little villain Turk.” Her heart almost stopped beating with the shock of knowing that nothing could now shield her captors from exposure. “But--but it will be very hard to prove,” she said, hoarsely, almost defiantly. “You have only to take oath,” he said, meaningly. “I don't know the name or face of a person in that castle,” she said, deliberately. He was silent for a full minute. “You intend to shield them?” he demanded. There was no answer to the question. Now she was positive that the man was no priest, but some one who knew the world and who had made it his business to trace her and her captors to the very gates of the castle. If he knew, then others must also be in possession of the secret. “Who are you?” she demanded, as he drew her deeper into the wood. There was now the wild desire to escape from her rescuer and to fly back to the kindly jailers on the hill. “A poor priest, by the grace of God,” he said, and she heard him chuckle. “Take me back to the road, sir!” she commanded. “I will take you to your mother,” he said, “and to no one else.”