"You are mistaken, mademoiselle; the red-breeches will know you as the daughter of the Marquis de Souday. If they don't shoot you, they'll take you prisoner. Come away! it will be daylight soon. Come, and if necessary," added Courte-Joie, alarmed at the girl's determination, "if necessary, I promise to bring you back to-morrow night."
"No, I tell you, no,--I will not go away!" answered the young girl. "Something tells me here" (and she struck her breast) "that he is calling me, he wants me."
Then, as Trigaud advanced, on a sign from Courte-Joie, apparently to seize her, she cried out, springing once more to the sill of the window:--
"Come a step nearer, and I will jump into that furnace."
Courte-Joie, perceiving that nothing could be obtained of Bertha by force, was about to resort to prayers, when Trigaud, who had remained standing with his arms stretched out in the position he had taken to seize the young girl, made a sign to his companion to be silent.
Courte-Joie, who knew by experience the extraordinary acuteness of the poor fool's senses, obeyed him. Trigaud listened.
"Are the soldiers returning?" asked Courte-Joie.
"No; it is not that," replied Trigaud.
Then, unbinding Courte-Joie, who was strapped as usual to his shoulders, he lay down flat on his stomach with his ear to the ground. Bertha, without coming down from her present post, turned her head to the mendicant and watched him. The movement he had made, the words he had said, caused her heart, she knew not why, to beat violently.
"Do you hear anything extraordinary?" asked Courte-Joie.