Greatly surprised, he stopped playing and looked at me:
“What! Don't you know? Haven't you heard about Mademoiselle Pearl?”
“No.”
“Didn't your father ever tell you?”
“No.”
“Well, well, that's funny! That certainly is funny! Why, it's a regular romance!”
He paused, and then continued:
“And if you only knew how peculiar it is that you should ask me that to-day, on Twelfth Night!”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, listen. Forty-one years ago to day, the day of the Epiphany, the following events occurred: We were then living at Roily-le-Tors, on the ramparts; but in order that you may understand, I must first explain the house. Roily is built on a hill, or, rather, on a mound which overlooks a great stretch of prairie. We had a house there with a beautiful hanging garden supported by the old battlemented wall; so that the house was in the town on the streets, while the garden overlooked the plain. There was a door leading from the garden to the open country, at the bottom of a secret stairway in the thick wall—the kind you read about in novels. A road passed in front of this door, which was provided with a big bell; for the peasants, in order to avoid the roundabout way, would bring their provisions up this way.