The sun had just set on a beautiful evening of a spring that
happily for Eustacie had been unusually warm and mild, when they
set forth, the dame having loaded her husband with a roll of
bedding, and herself taking a pitcher of mild and a loaf of bread,
whilst Eustacie, as usual, carried her own small parcel of clothes
and jewels. The way was certainly not long to any one less
exhausted than she; it was along a couple of fields, and then
through a piece of thicket, where Rotrou held back the boughs and
his wife almost dragged her on with kind encouraging words, till
they came up to a stone ivy-covered wall, and coasting along it to
a tower, evidently a staircase turret. Here Rotrou, holding aside
an enormous bush of ivy, showed the foot of a winding staircase,
and his wife assured her that she would not have far to climb.

She knew where she was now. She had heard of the old Refectory of
the Knights Templars. Partly demolished by the hatred of the
people upon the abolition of the Order, it had ever since lain
waste, and had become the centre of all the ghostly traditions of
the country; the locality of all the most horrid tales of REVENANTS
told under the breath at Dame Perrine's hearth or at recreation
hour at Bellaise. Her courage was not proof against spiritual
terrors. She panted and leant against the wall, as she faintly
exclaimed, 'The Temple--there--and alone!'

'Nay, Lady, methought as _Monsieur votre mari_ knew the true light,
you would fear no vain terror nor power of darkness.'

Should these peasants--these villeins--be bold, and see the
descendant of the 'bravest of knights,' the daughter of the house