"I owed her that, too! Listen, listen to my story! After avenging myself on La Flèche, I hid in the pavilion in your garden. I had seen that you were angry with me, and I was waiting for your anger to pass. I thought that you would look for me, that you would be anxious about me, and would keep me in your château to love me. But toward evening, you came there with your Lauriane, and you told her that you hated me and I heard every word! Then I dropped a stone on her to kill her, and I hid myself. But you thought the stone had fallen of itself and you left me there. "I passed the night there, dying with cold and hunger. I was in a frenzy of rage; that kept me up. I cursed you both; I cursed myself for having offended you. I meant to let myself die; but I had not the courage, and as I wanted nothing more of you, whom I believed that I hated, I went to Brilbault to get Sancho's money, which La Flèche had made me steal two or three months before, at La Caille-Bottée's house. "In those days I didn't know the value of money, and I hated La Flèche so bitterly that I gave it all back to Sancho, who had hidden it so carefully that he was able to manage the gypsies with promises and a few crowns from time to time. But I knew where he had buried his treasure, and there was a good deal of it left; a good deal to me, at least, I needed so little. I divided it into several parts and hid them in different places. "I had taken it into my head that I could live alone without being dependent on anybody, and wander all over the world at will, child that I was! But I soon got tired of it, and as I happened to fall in with Bellinde, who was flying from the country, with her head shaved and in a miserable plight, I told her that I had some little hidden treasures, but was very careful not to tell her where they were! Oh! how she flattered me, tormented me, made me tipsy and questioned me even in my sleep, trying to find out! She never lost the hope of extorting my secret from me; that is why she became my mother and my servant, always fawning on me and betraying me. Ah! yes, she betrayed me shamefully! She sold me, she abandoned me when I was still a child; and when, later, I realized and felt my shame, I swore that I would be revenged upon her when I no longer needed her. Now, the crows are feeding oh her flesh, and it was a righteous deed, God knows!" "You are a wretched, horrible girl!" said Mario. "Now have you finished?" "Now, I want you to love me, Mario, or I will avenge myself on your Lauriane, whom you still love, I know that; for you didn't choose to speak of her to your comrades in the inn just now. Oh! I was there too, hidden in the garret, where I heard all the evil you said of me." "Since you heard all, how can you be mad enough to ask me to love you?"