“She is my sister,” she answered.
“Why are you called la Esmeralda?” asked the poet.
“I do not know.”
“But why?”
She drew from her bosom a sort of little oblong bag, suspended from her neck by a string of adrézarach beads. This bag exhaled a strong odor of camphor. It was covered with green silk, and bore in its centre a large piece of green glass, in imitation of an emerald.
“Perhaps it is because of this,” said she.
Gringoire was on the point of taking the bag in his hand. She drew back.
“Don’t touch it! It is an amulet. You would injure the charm or the charm would injure you.”
The poet’s curiosity was more and more aroused.
“Who gave it to you?”