A worse noise than before; an awful fluttering and flapping right above her head. She screamed out now, terrified nearly to death. The echoes repeated her scream; and the rushing wings, with another kind of scream, not half so shrill as hers, went out through the broken wall and flew across the sea. She felt just as though she were dropping into her grave. Was it the revenant of the place?--or was it the revenant of her husband?--what was it? Cowering there, her face prone against a column, Charlotte asked herself these dread questions: and never once, until her alarm was somewhat subsiding, did she think of what her reason might have shown her at first--that it was an owl. An owl, angry at its precincts being invaded: or perhaps some large sea-bird. With her face as white as death, and her limbs shaking as though in an ague fit, she made her way to the entrance gate again; passed through it, and so got away from the Friar's Keep. CHAPTER XVI. AT GREYLANDS' REST. "Now, mademoiselle, je n'eh veux pas." "Because Ethel understands French as well as you do, that's no reason why I should. If you tell me in French what I have to do, of course I can't do it, for I don't know a word you say." It was the first morning of the studies, Tuesday, Madame Guise having entered the previous day. She, Ethel, and Flora were seated round the table in the schoolroom, a small apartment looking to the kitchen-garden, with an old carpet on its floor, painted segged chairs, and a square piano against the wall opposite the fire. Ethel was copying music. Madame Guise was endeavouring to ascertain the advancement of Miss Flora in her studies, with a view to arranging their course in future, speaking in French, and requiring the replies to be in French. But the young lady obstinately persisted in making them in English. "Whatever you do, Madame Guise, please speak always to Flora in French," had been Mrs. Castlemaine's first charge to the new governess. "Above all things, I wish her to be a good French scholar, and to speak it as fluently as Miss Reene does." But here, at the very outset, Miss Flora was demurring to the French, and protesting she could not understand it. Madame Guise hesitated. She did not choose to be met by wilful disobedience; on the other hand, to issue her mandates in an unknown language would be simply waste of time. She turned her eyes questioningly on Ethel. "I am not quite sure, madame, one way or the other," said Ethel, replying in French. "Flora ought to be able to understand it; and to speak it a little too; but she has always been inattentive. Miss Oldham and the governesses who preceded her did not speak French as you do: perhaps they were not particular that Flora should speak it." "How is it that you speak it so well?" asked Madame. "I? Oh, I had a French nurse when I was a child, and then a French governess; and to finish my education I went to Paris for two years."