The pedler was far down the street.
“Bélisaire!” shouted Jack.
The man turned. “I was sure it was you,” continued Jack, breathlessly. “Do you come here often?”
“Yes, very often;” and then Bélisaire added, after a moment, “How happens it, Master Jack, that you are here, and have left that pretty house?”
The boy hesitated, and the pedler seeing this, continued,—
“That was a famous ham, was it not? And that lovely lady, who had such a gentle face, she was your mother, was she not?”
Jack was so happy at hearing her name mentioned that he would have lingered there at the corner of the street for an hour, but Bélisaire said he was in haste, that he had a letter to deliver, and must go.
When Jack entered the house, Madame Rondic met him at the door. She was very pale, and said, in a low voice, with trembling lips,—
“What did you want of that man?”
The child answered that he had known him at Etiolles, and that they had been talking of his parents.