“A man goes helmet on head, sword in hand, and gilt spurs on heel.”

“Good,” said Gringoire, “the horse makes the man. Do you love any one?”

“As a lover?”

“As a lover.”

She paused thoughtfully for a moment, then she said with a peculiar expression, “I shall know that soon.”

“And why not to-night?” rejoined the poet in tender accents; “why not me?”

She gave him a cold, grave look. “I could never love a man unless he could protect me.”

Gringoire reddened and accepted the rebuke. The girl evidently alluded to the feeble assistance he had rendered her in the critical situation of a couple of hours before. This recollection, effaced by the subsequent adventures of the evening, now returned to him. He smote his forehead.

“That reminds me, mademoiselle, I ought to have begun by that. Pardon my foolish distraction. How did you manage to escape out of the clutches of Quasimodo?”

The gipsy shuddered. “Oh, the horrible hunchback!” she exclaimed, hiding her face in her hands, and shivering as if overcome by violent cold.

“Horrible indeed,” agreed Gringoire; “but how,” he persisted, “did you get away from him?”

Esmeralda smiled, heaved a little sigh, and held her peace.

“Do you know why he followed you?” asked Gringoire, trying to come at the information he sought by another way.

“No, I do not,” answered the gipsy. “But,” she added sharply, “you were following me too. Why did you follow me?”

“To tell you the honest truth,” replied Gringoire, “I don’t know that either.”

There was a pause. Gringoire was scratching the table with his knife; the girl smiled to herself and seemed to be looking at something through the wall. Suddenly she began to sing, hardly above her breath:

She stopped abruptly, and fell to stroking Djali.

“That is a pretty little animal you have there.”

“It is my sister,” she replied.

“Why do they call you Esmeralda?” inquired the poet.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, do tell me.”

She drew from her bosom a little oblong bag hanging round her neck by a chain of berries. The bag, which exhaled a strong smell of camphor, was made of green silk, and had in the middle a large green glass bead like an emerald. “It is perhaps because of that,” said she.