"Do you think so, poor heavy-foot? You can only hearken to what is whispered past your ear; but I can sit here on the battlements and read all the secrets below me."
"Can you, Mademoiselle Nightingale? For instance, where is Madame Bronck's box?"
The maid drew a deep breath at her own daring.
"It is not about Madame Bronck's box that they confer. It is about the marriage of the Hollandaise," answered Le Rossignol with a bold guess. "I could have told you that when you entered the turret."
Zélie experienced a chill through her flesh which was not caused by the damp breath of Fundy Bay.
"How doth she find out things done behind her back—this clever little witch? And perhaps you will name the bridegroom, mademoiselle?"
"Who could that be except the big Hollandais who hath come out of the west after her? Could she marry a priest or a common soldier?"
"That is true," admitted Zélie, feeling her superstition allayed.
"There must be as few women as trinkets in that wilderness Fort of Orange from which he came," added the dwarf.
"Why?" inquired Zélie, wrinkling her nose and squinting in the sunlight.