"You told me that you lodged at Mother Françoise's house. And when you left there where did you go? I may as well tell you that yesterday Zenobie, that is Françoise's daughter, was asked to give some information, some references of you, and she said that you only spent one night in her mother's house, then you disappeared, and no one knew what you did from that night until now." Perrine had listened to the commencement of this cross examination in afright, but as Monsieur Vulfran went on she grew braver. "There is someone who knows what I did after I left the room I used at Mother Françoise'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?"