"Hush! she is waking!" said the other. "Quick, close the lantern!" and, after a few words more, spoken in a still lower tone, there was a considerable movement in the chapel. Several persons came and went; and Isabel de Brienne, gradually waking again to a consciousness of her unhappy situation, heard the stern tones of the Marquis of Masseran, now speaking in a loud voice, and giving various orders to the people that surrounded him. "Is the litter not come yet?" he said. "Go, some one, and hasten it: I will take care that no such plots as these are carried on again. Have you got the priest? I trust you have not let him escape." "He is safe enough," replied one of the others; "he is safe enough, and up at the castle by this time. Here is the litter, my lord." "Come, fair madam," said the Lord of Masseran, "if you cannot walk, we must have you borne forth. But surely a lady sufficiently active to deceive her own mother, and to find her way hither on such a night as this, may very well walk to the chapel door." "My lord," said Isabel, faintly, "I did not deceive my mother. It was only one prisoner who concealed her plan of escape from another, compelled--I trust and believe unwillingly--to act the part of a spy and a jailer. I call every one to witness," she added, speaking as loud as her feeble state would permit, "that I protest against your removing me anywhere but to the court of the King of France, my native sovereign." "Who said we were going to take you anywhere but to his court?" rejoined the Lord of Masseran. "Come, madam, come! Cease arguments and protests; I am your mother's husband, your guardian for the time, and that guardianship you shall not break through very easily." Thus saying, he raised her rudely by the arm, and, half leading, half dragging her, conveyed her to the door of the chapel, and placed her in a horse-litter which stood near. Some farther delay took place while the men around were mounting their horses and arranging the order of their march. When this was completed, however, the Lord of Masseran put himself at the head of his troop, and proceeded at a slow pace, taking a road that led away from the castle. Isabel, unable to move, lay in the litter and wept; but she remarked that, from time to time, single horsemen passed from the rear to the front, and from the front to the rear, and that manifold were the orders and directions given to the different persons of whom the party was composed. No one, however, spoke a word to her; but it was some consolation to see, as day began to break upon their weary journey onward, that there was the form of another woman among the troopers on before. Isabel thought, too, that she had once heard, during the night, the voice of her maid speaking in a somewhat complaining tone; and the idea of having her society in the state of captivity she was doomed to suffer was no slight alleviation.