"But your husband may yet, like you, have escaped death. Do not despair," observed Yolande.
"If he escaped that danger, it was probably to fall into a greater, for the seigneur of Plouernel——"
"The seigneur of Plouernel!" exclaimed Yolande interrupting Joan, "do you know that scoundrel?"
"We were serfs in his seigniory. It is from the country of Plouernel that we departed for the Holy Land. Accident made us meet with the seigneur count shortly before the sand-spout burst upon us. My husband and he fought——"
"And did he not kill Neroweg?"
"No, he yielded to my prayers."
"What, pity for Neroweg, Worse than a Wolf!" exclaimed Yolande in an explosion of rage and hatred. "Oh, I am but a woman! But I would have stabbed him to the heart without remorse! The monster!"
"What did he do to you?"
"He deprived me of the inheritance of my father, and, falling from shame to shame, I have become the companion of the queen of the wenches."
"Oh, mademoiselle Yolande," remarked Perrette, returning to her cynic quips, "will you ever remain proud?"