When they rose, Mademoiselle d'Albret would fain have asked explanations, but Helen whispered to be silent; and making her lie down in the priest's bed, she knelt by her side, drew the curtain round to deaden the sound of her voice, and then, in a low murmur, related all she had to tell. The first news that she gave were the joyful tidings that De Montigni still lived; and Rose clasped her hands gladly, giving thanks to God. But at Helen's farther intelligence, horror and consternation took possession of her. "Oh, heaven!" she said, "what will become of me, if they have recourse to such means as this?--Where shall I find safety?" "Fear not, fear not," replied Helen: "my uncle will devise means to deliver you." "Oh, let me fly, Helen," said Rose. "The door by which you came into the chapel, may give me freedom." Helen shook her head: "Not to-night," she said. "You might meet him in the passages. As soon as he discovers you have left your room, there will be search and inquiry. We must trust to him who brought me hither: but Walter de la Tremblade is not a man to be frustrated by any one. Leave it to him--he will deliver you." No sound as yet had reached them from the neighbouring chamber, although they had now quitted it nearly an hour; but the door was thick and heavy, and deeply sunk in the wall. The next moment, however, they heard voices speaking at the top of the stairs; and some one said aloud, "Goodnight, Monsieur de Chazeul!" Those simple words were followed by a meaning laugh; then some other sounds not so distinct, and then all was silent again. "You were right, dear Helen," said Rose d'Albret. "We should have been stopped had I attempted to fly. But where will this end?--where will this end?" and, turning her eyes to the pillow, she wept bitterly. Helen tried to comfort her, though she herself needed consolation as much; for who can tell what were all the varied sensations, each painful, yet each different from the rest, which thronged her bosom on that sad night? She felt, oh, how bitterly! that she had loved a villain, deeper, blacker, more degraded than all his treachery to her could have taught her to believe; and there is no agony so horrible as when the cup of affection is first mingled with contempt and abhorrence. She was not only neglected and cast off for another,--that she could have borne, and wept or withered away in silence;--but she found him for whom she had sacrificed all, using still baser arts than those he had employed against herself, for sordid objects, and without even the excuse of passion. She felt grief too, for Rose d'Albret, for her who had been so tender and so kind towards herself; and dread, lest, after all, the machinations of those who had the poor girl in their toils, should prove successful, came like a cold dark cloud over the dreary prospect of the future.