The priest listened without surprise, as she told him that Monsieur de Chazeul had required that admission should be given him to her mistress's chamber, at an hour after midnight. "He assured me," the girl said, "that it is with Mademoiselle d'Albret's consent, but that she did not like to mention it to me; and he added, that I was not to speak of it to her." "That was not right, for, I believe, it is not true," replied the priest. "But what you have to do, is to ask Madame de Chazeul, and follow her directions." "Oh, if I am to do that," cried the girl, "she bade me already do everything that Monsieur de Chazeul told me; but I thought it right to come and ask you, father, that I might be quite sure of what I was about." The priest paused and hesitated; but, after several minutes' thought, he replied, "I know not the circumstances, my daughter.--Doubtless Monsieur de Chazeul has no evil intentions." And thus saying, he rose and quitted the confessional, leaving Blanchette to draw her own deductions and follow her own course. The girl paused and pondered thoughtfully for several moments; then shrugging her shoulders, she murmured with a low laugh, "Well, if he sees no harm in it, what business is it of mine?" and, with this comfortable reflection, she returned slowly to the château. CHAPTER XXVI. It was near midnight; all was quiet in the château; sleep seemed to have fallen upon all eyes but those of the sentries upon the walls. The wind sighed amongst the towers and pinnacles; the old oak panneling creaked; and every now and then the screech-owl whirled with its shrill scream past the windows; but those were the only sounds that disturbed the deep silence of night, while the priest, in the chapel, watched the body of the dead man, according to his promise. The building itself was dark and gloomy; the tapers on the altar cast their rays but a little distance beyond the coffin; and the light faded away gradually into the deep obscurity of the other parts of the chapel, while the large cluster pillars and the rich, sculptured groins of the arches, caught the beams faintly as they darted towards the vaulted roof, or strove to penetrate the aisles. It was a solemn scene, and might well fill the breast with thoughts high and grave. There lay the dead: the dust ready for the earth, the spirit returned to God who gave it. There stood the altar, raised for the worship of that God, and bearing aloft in the full light, the symbol of the salvation which was purchased by the blood of His Son. Death, immortality, and redemption, were prominent and clear before the eye, while all round was obscurity, like the misty darkness of mortal fate which wraps us, in this strange world wherein we live.