"Hush!" said the Lord of Masseran, "hush! here is some one coming to seek me:" and, leaving the priest, he advanced a few steps towards a servant who now approached from the house. The marquis asked a question in a low tone, to which the other replied, loud enough for Father Willand to hear, "He will not come within the gates, sir, but desires to speak with you for a moment without: he says he is but in his hunting-garb, and unfitted to enter your halls." "How many men has he with him?" demanded the Lord of Masseran. "No one but a page, my lord, near the gates," replied the man. "The rest I saw gathered together about a mile down the road, on the other side of the valley." "I will come!" said the Lord of Masseran, "I will come!" and he added, in a lower tone, some words which the priest did not hear, but which he judged had reference to himself, from perceiving the eyes of the speakers turned more than once shrewdly towards him. "I will be back again in a few minutes, good father," the Lord of Masseran continued. "Wait for me, for we have yet much to speak of." "I will wait, I will wait," replied the priest; "only be not long, my good son; for, though I have much to say to you, I have little time to spare." The Lord of Masseran gave him every assurance that he would return speedily; and then left the garden, followed by the attendant who had summoned him. The priest looked after them and listened; and, being someway connected with the race of that gentleman called in history Fine-ear, he distinctly heard the door by which he and the marquis had entered the garden locked after the latter had quitted it. "There is another door," he muttered to himself, with a smile, looking towards one of the archways upon the terrace leading to the chateau. The next instant, however, there was a sound from that quarter also, as if somebody turned the key there likewise; but the priest continued to smile notwithstanding, and, proceeding slowly along the terraces, as if merely to amuse himself by a walk, he approached the thick wall of the garden, and stopped at the entrance of one of those little guerites, or watch-towers, with which the whole enclosure was studded from place to place. Up the narrow staircase in the stone he made his way, and then looked carefully out through the loophole which was turned towards the chief entrance of the chateau. No living object, however, was to be seen in the immediate neighbourhood of the castle itself; though, as the attendant had said, about a mile down the road which passed through the valley was a group of men, and horses, and dogs gathered together in various listless attitudes, while two large eagles were seen whirling in immense circles high up above the tops of the mountains, upon the lower part of whose tall sides a flock of sheep appeared feeding in peaceful tranquillity.