"That we two should be out in the sweet air together, free from the rat-trap, free from the fox with the wolf's claws, free from--from--that accursed house in the Rue Trois Pucelles, and riding--God knows where! What does it matter!" "Why, what was that house to you?" I asked, remembering a hint Monseigneur had let fall. "It was very near being my last rise in the world, and having seen two poor souls travel by that upward road I had no heart to follow them. One was a common thief, a foul-mouthed gutter bully, and I daresay deserved his hanging. But the other was a miserable, white-faced wench who stole a loaf out of sheer hunger, and that she might keep her wretched soul one day longer in its starved body. They hung them together--for company, I suppose; and it made me sick to see a coarse, burly scoundrel climb out of that upper window and slide down the rope to the girl's shoulders and crouch there, tailor-fashion, laughing at some vile jest of his own making, while she--quite right, Monsieur Gaspard, I'll say no more about it. It's a filthy way by which to send even a sinner to God." The picture Martin conjured up was a horrible one, and remembering Mademoiselle's grim suggestion as to what her fate would be if found in Tours, I had made an involuntary gesture of loathing. If it had sickened Martin to see an outcast of the streets--a nameless wretch haled from God knows what cellar of vice--suffer such foul indignity, how would the spirit not revolt to think of that pure, sweet face---- But even as I clenched my teeth and cursed at large, a new thought broadened upon me. What a spirit she must have had, what a courage, what a boldness, what an abnegation of self, to deliberately, and with open eyes, face so horrible an end in cold blood! It is curious how the little side winds of life fan the flame of love. Martin's chance words, and the shocking scene they forced upon the imagination, had turned my thoughts afresh in Mademoiselle's direction, warming my admiration to glowing point. But of that he knew nothing. "And you?" I asked. "How did Tristan's brutal work touch you?"