Dusk was closing in, but lamps had not yet been lighted, when with a trembling, yet almost a bounding heart, Eustacie stole down the stone staircase, leading to a back-door—­an utterly uncanonical appendage to a nunnery, but one much used among the domestic establishment of Bellaise.

A gleam of red light spread across the passage from the half-open kitchen door, whence issued the savoury steam of the supper preparing for Monseigneur.  Eustacie had just cautiously traversed it, when the voice of the presiding lay-sister called out, ‘Veronique, is that you?’

‘Sister!’ returned Eustacie, with as much of the Angevin twang as she could assume.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the Orchard Farm with this linen.’

’Ah! it must be.  But there are strict orders come from Madame about nobody going out unreported, and you may chance to find the door locked if you do not come back in good time.  Oh! and I had well-night forgot; tell your mother to be here early to-morrow, Madame would speak with her.’

Eustacie assented, half stifled by the great throb of her fluttering heart at the sense that she had indeed seized the last moment.  Forth then she stepped.  How dark, waste, and lonely the open field looked!  But her heart did not fail her; she could only feel that a captivity was over, and the most vague and terrible of her anxieties soothed, as she made her way into one of the long shady lanes of the Bocage.  It was nearly dark, and very muddy, but she had all the familiarity of a native with the way, and the farm, where she had trotted about in her infancy like a peasant’s child, always seemed like home to her.  It had been a prime treat to visit it during her time of education at the convent, and there was an association of pleasure in treading the path that seemed to bear her up, and give her enjoyment in the mere adventure and feeling of escape and liberty.  She had no fear of the dark, nor of the distant barking of dogs, but the mire was deep, and it was plodding work in those heavy sabots, up the lane that led from the convent; and the poor child was sorely weary long before she came to the top of the low hill that she used scarcely to know to be rising round at all.  The stars had come out; and as she sat for a few moments to rest on a large stone, she saw the lights of the cottage fires in the village below, and looking round could also see the many gleams in the convent windows, the read fire-light in her own room among them.  She shivered a little as she thought of its glowing comfort, but turned her back resolutely, tightened her cloak over her head, looked up to a glimmer in the watch-tower of her own castle far above her on the hill and closed against her; and then smiled to herself with hope at the sparkle of a window in a lonely farmhouse among the fields.

With fresh vigour she rose, and found her way through lane and field-path to the paddock where she had so often played.  Here a couple of huge dogs dashed forward with an explosion of barks, dying away into low growls as she spoke to them by their names, and called aloud on ‘Blaise!’ and ‘Mere Perrine!’ The cottage door was opened, the light streamed forth, and a man’s head in a broad had appeared.  ‘Veronique, girl, is this an hour to be gadding abroad?’