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