Mother Francoise's," she said quietly.

"Who?"

"Rosalie, her granddaughter, knows. She will tell you that what I am now
going to tell you, sir, is the truth. That is, if you think my doings
are worth knowing about."

"The position that you are to hold in my service demands that I know
what you are," said Monsieur Vulfran.

"Well, Monsieur, I will tell you," said little Perrine. "When you know
you can send for Rosalie and question her without me seeing her, and
then you will have the proof that I have not deceived you."

"Yes, that can be done," he said in a softened voice, "now go on...."

She told her story, dwelling on the horror of that night in that
miserable room, her disgust, how she was almost suffocated, and how she
crept outside at the break of dawn too sick to stay in that terrible
garret one moment longer.

"Cannot you bear what the other girls could?" asked her employer.

"The others perhaps have not lived in the open air as I have," said
Perrine, her beautiful eyes fixed on her grandfather's face. "I assure
you I am not hard to please. We were so poor that we endured great
misery. But I could not stay in that room. I should have died, and I
don't think it was wrong of me to try to escape death. I could not live
if I had to sleep there."

"Why! can that room be so unhealthy, so unwholesome as that?" mused
Monsieur Vulfran.

"Oh, sir," cried Perrine, "if you could see it you would never permit
your work girls to live there, never, never."

"Go on with your story," he said abruptly.

She told him how she had discovered the tiny island and how the idea had
come to her to take possession of the cabin.

"You were not afraid?" he asked.

"I am not accustomed to being afraid," she said, with a wan little smile
flitting across her beautiful face.

"You are speaking of that cabin in the valley there a little to the side
of the road to Saint-Pipoy, on the left, are you not?" asked Monsieur
Vulfran.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"That belongs to me and my nephews use it. Was it there that you slept?"

"I not only slept there, but I worked there and I ate there, and I even
gave a dinner to Rosalie, and she can tell you about it," said little
Perrine eagerly, for now that she had told him her story she wanted him to
know everything. "I did not leave the cabin until you sent for me to go to
Saint-Pipoy, and then you told me to stay there so as to be on hand to
interpret for the machinists. And now tonight I