psy watched the priest retire in
the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. A cavalcade was heard in that
direction.

The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with terror,
she tried to disengage herself. She writhed, she made many starts of
agony and despair, but the other held her with incredible strength. The
lean and bony fingers which bruised her, clenched on her flesh and met
around it. One would have said that this hand was riveted to her arm. It
was more than a chain, more than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it
was a living pair of pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged
from the wall.

She fell back against the wall exhausted, and then the fear of death
took possession of her. She thought of the beauty of life, of youth, of
the view of heaven, the aspects of nature, of her love for Phoebus, of
all that was vanishing and all that was approaching, of the priest who
was denouncing her, of the headsman who was to come, of the gallows
which was there. Then she felt terror mount to the very roots of her
hair and she heard the mocking laugh of the recluse, saying to her in a
very low tone: "Hah! hah! hah! you are going to be hanged!"

She turned a dying look towards the window, and she beheld the fierce
face of the sacked nun through the bars.

"What have I done to you?" she said, almost lifeless.

The recluse did not reply, but began to mumble with a singsong
irritated, mocking intonation: "Daughter of Egypt! daughter of Egypt!
daughter of Egypt!"

The unhappy Esmeralda dropped her head beneath her flowing hair,
comprehending that it was no human being she had to deal with.

All at once the recluse exclaimed, as though the gypsy's question had
taken all this time to reach her brain,--"'What have you done to me?'
you say! Ah! what have you done to me, gypsy! Well! listen.--I had a
child! you see! I had a child! a child, I tell you!--a pretty little
girl!--my Agnes!" she went on wildly, kissing something in the
dark.--"Well! do you see, daughter of Egypt? they took my child from me;
they stole my child; they ate my child. That is what you have done to
me."

The young girl replied like a lamb,--

"Alas! perchance I was not born then!"

"Oh! yes!" returned the recluse, "you must have been born. You were
among them. She would be the same age as you! so!--I have been here
fifteen years; fifteen years have I suffered; fifteen years have I
prayed; fifteen years have I beat my head agai