s, and that man is not made to pass his life in
beating the tambourine and biting chairs. But, reverend master, it is
not sufficient to pass one's life, one must earn the means for life."

Dom Claude listened in silence. All at once his deep-set eye assumed so
sagacious and penetrating an expression, that Gringoire felt himself, so
to speak, searched to the bottom of the soul by that glance.

"Very good, Master Pierre; but how comes it that you are now in company
with that gypsy dancer?"

"In faith!" said Gringoire, "'tis because she is my wife and I am her
husband."

The priest's gloomy eyes flashed into flame.

"Have you done that, you wretch!" he cried, seizing Gringoire's arm with
fury; "have you been so abandoned by God as to raise your hand against
that girl?"

"On my chance of paradise, monseigneur," replied Gringoire, trembling
in every limb, "I swear to you that I have never touched her, if that is
what disturbs you."

"Then why do you talk of husband and wife?" said the priest. Gringoire
made haste to relate to him as succinctly as possible, all that the
reader already knows, his adventure in the Court of Miracles and the
broken-crock marriage. It appeared, moreover, that this marriage had led
to no results whatever, and that each evening the gypsy girl cheated
him of his nuptial right as on the first day. "'Tis a mortification,"
he said in conclusion, "but that is because I have had the misfortune to
wed a virgin."

"What do you mean?" demanded the archdeacon, who had been gradually
appeased by this recital.

"'Tis very difficult to explain," replied the poet. "It is a
superstition. My wife is, according to what an old thief, who is called
among us the Duke of Egypt, has told me, a foundling or a lost child,
which is the same thing. She wears on her neck an amulet which, it is
affirmed, will cause her to meet her parents some day, but which will
lose its virtue if the young girl loses hers. Hence it follows that both
of us remain very virtuous."

"So," resumed Claude, whose brow cleared more and more, "you believe,
Master Pierre, that this creature has not been approached by any man?"

"What would you have a man do, Dom Claude, as against a superstition?
She has got that in her head. I assuredly esteem as a rarity this
nunlike prudery which is preserved untamed amid those Bohemian girls
who are so easily brought into subjection. But she has three things to
protect her: the Duke of Egypt, who has