"Did you pay a high price for him?" inquired Robineau with a sarcastic smile.
The girl did not reply for some seconds; then she lowered her eyes and said:
"He was given to me—he cost me nothing. The person who made me the gift told me that he could not give me a more faithful guardian."
"Had I been in his place," said Edouard, "I would have done the same. Your situation is not without danger, and fidelity is assuredly the greatest safeguard of innocence and beauty."
Isaure looked up at Edouard and seemed to thank him with a smile; while Robineau shook his head and stuffed himself with bread and butter.
"But," said Alfred, "you live near a place against which all of Vaillant’s vigilance would be of no avail, assuming the reports that are current hereabout to be true."
"Ah! do you mean the house across the way?" said Isaure smiling, "where the people of the mountains declare that there are ghosts?"
"Exactly.—So you are not afraid of these ghosts?"
"Oh! no, monsieur! I know very well that it’s all nonsense. In my dear mother’s time, the mountaineers used to tell us sometimes that we ought to go away from this dangerous valley. But that only made us laugh. We knew that there was no danger here; for nothing ever happened to us."
"And don’t you ever see lights in the White House at night," asked Robineau, "or hear noises? Don’t you ever see the black ghost?"