“Now,” thought Ned, “shall I tell her the truth—that, practically, she is not guilty?”
“No,” muttered the little Belial voice in his ear; “what value lies in the practical significance? The moral is the truth. Besides, are you so sure that her imagination is not at this moment calculating its probable effects on you? Think of her consummate and enduring art in affecting a character, in playing a part.”
The frost of scepticism nipped his pretty burgeon of pity. He hardened his heart and drew back again.
“Die!” he said, with a little caustic laugh; “well, for one of your imagination, it should be easy in these days to devise a quite lawful means of introduction to Monsieur Sanson.”
She glanced up at him quickly, with a look of agony; then drooped her head and said no more. A second long silence fell between them. But by-and-by Ned found himself restlessly driven to open upon her again.
“What happened after I had left you that time?”
She seemed to wake to his voice, shuddering out of some scaring dream.
“My God! they sought for me; they burned my lodge; they killed my poor génisse. They would have crucified me like the thieves; but I hid, and escaped in the night.”
She paused. “Go on,” he said.
“I fled into the woods. There, when I was lost and near starving, I fell, by God’s blessing, upon the Cagots who had once before visited our parts. They were returned, making their way towards Paris because of the cry of equality. They had lost their child; it had been hunted by boys, and had died of the ill-treatment. They were alone, those two, and they took me in and fed me; and by-and-by, when it was safe for me to move, I went with them on their journey to the great city.”