"Oh! don't trouble yourself about that; I've a good foot, a good eye, and an honest heart. Besides, Baron Michel is my foster-brother; we've known each other this long while, and I know he is no more capable of forcing the virtue of a girl than the bolts of a prison. Besides, what were you told to do?"
"Release him if we could and bring him, willingly or unwillingly, to your father's house, where we were to find you."
"Well, here I am, and there's the house; the bird is out of his cage; that's all that was asked of you, wasn't it?"
"Hang it! yes, I believe so."
"Then, good-night."
"Look here, Rosine, for greater security, don't you want us to put a rope round his paws?" said Courte-Joie, sarcastically.
"Thank you, no, Maître Courte-Joie," said Rosine, going toward Michel; "better put one on your own tongue."
Michel, in spite of the distance at which he stood, had distinguished Rosine's name and perceived, as we have said, the connivance which evidently existed between her and his captors. He was more and more confirmed in the belief that he owed his deliverance to Bertha. Courte-Joie's proceedings, the sort of violence he had used toward him, by means of his auxiliary Trigaud, the mystery in which the tavern-keeper had wrapped the origin and reason of his devotion to a man whom he scarcely knew,--all these things agreed wonderfully with the irritation which the letter he had sent by the notary was calculated to rouse in the violent and irascible heart of the young girl.
"Oh! Rosine, is that you?" he exclaimed, raising his voice as soon as he saw through the darkness his foster-sister coming toward him.
"Good!" cried Rosine, "you are not like that wretch of a Courte-Joie, who didn't choose to recognize me at first. You knew me at once, didn't you, Monsieur Michel?"