"Yes, she is Ernestine," added Herminie.
"It is all perfectly clear now, you see," remarked the marquis.
On hearing this explanation, which was even more incomprehensible to him than what had gone before, the unfortunate baron cast a half frantic glance around him, then, closing his eyes, said to the hunchback, in despairing tones:
"M. de Maillefort, you seem to be absolutely pitiless. I have as strong a mind as anybody else, I think, but it is incapable of unravelling such a mystery as this. You promised to give me the answer to this beastly enigma, but the answer is even more incomprehensible than the enigma itself."
"Come, come, my dear baron, calm yourself, and listen to me."
"I have been listening to you for a quarter of an hour or more," groaned the baron, "and yet I am very much worse off than I was in the beginning."
"Well, well, everything shall be made plain now," said the marquis, soothingly.
"Proceed, then, I beg of you."
"Very well, then, these are the facts of the case: Through a combination of circumstances which will be explained later on, and which have no special bearing on the subject now under consideration, your ward met M. Olivier and passed herself off to him as a poor orphan girl, who was supporting herself by her needle. Do you understand thus far, baron?"
"Yes, I understand thus far. What next?"