"I will, and I am sure that M. de Maillefort will approve my decision."
The marquis had been listening silently but thoughtfully.
"Is this M. Olivier the young man who invited you to dance out of charity, and to whom frequent allusion is made in your journal?"
"Yes, M. de Maillefort."
"And it was M. Olivier's uncle that Ernestine saved from almost certain death the other day," added Herminie.
"His uncle?" exclaimed the hunchback, quickly.
Then, after a moment's reflection, he added:
"I understand. Gratitude, combined with another and more tender sentiment which had its birth at her first meeting with this young man at Madame Herbaut's house, led him to propose to Ernestine when he believed her to be poor and unprotected."
"And a brilliant match it seemed for one of my supposed position," remarked Mlle. de Beaumesnil, "for M. Olivier had just been made an officer, so it was an enviable social position as well as comparative affluence that he offered a penniless and obscure girl who laboured for her daily bread."
"Is his name Olivier Raymond?" exclaimed the hunchback, as if a new idea had suddenly occurred to him.