“By God, it is a lie!” cried the dwarf, with a groan. Then he came close to Valmond. “He was--my brother! Do you not see?” he demanded fiercely, his eyes full of misery. “Do you not see that it was you? Yes, yes, it was you.” Stooping, Valmond caught the little man in an embrace. “It was I that killed him, Parpon. It was I, comrade. You saved my life,” he added significantly. “The girl threw, but missed,” said Parpon. “She does not know but that she struck him.” “She must be told.” “I will tell her that you killed him. Leave it to me--all to me, my grand seigneur.” A half-hour afterwards the avocat, the Cure, and the Little Chemist, had heard the story as the dwarf told it, and Valmond returned to the Louis Quinze a hero. For hours the habitants gathered under his window and cheered him. Parpon sat long in gloomy silence by his side, but, raising his voice, he began to sing softly a lament for the gross-figured body, lying alone in a shed near the deserted smithy: “Children, the house is empty, The house behind the tall hill; Lonely and still is the empty house. There is no face in the doorway, There is no fire in the chimney. Come and gather beside the gate, Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills. “Where has the wild dog vanished? Where has the swift foot gone? Where is the hand that found the good fruit, That made a garret of wholesome herbs? Where is the voice that awoke the morn, The tongue that defied the terrible beasts? Come and listen beside the door, Little Good Folk of the Scarlet Hills.” The pathos of the chant almost made his listener shrink, so immediate and searching was it. When the lament ceased, there was a long silence, broken by Valmond. “He was your brother, Parpon--how? Tell me about it.” The dwarf’s eyes looked into the distance. “It was in the far-off country,” he said, “in the hills where the Little Good Folk come. My mother married an outlaw. Ah, he was cruel, and an animal! My brother Gabriel was born--he was a giant, his brain all fumbling and wild. Then I was born, so small, a head as a tub, and long arms like a gorilla. We burrowed in the hills, Gabriel and I. One day my mother, because my father struck her, went mad, left us and came to--” He broke off, pausing an instant. “Then Gabriel struck the man, and he died, and we buried him, and my brother also left me, and I was alone. By and by I travelled to Pontiac. Once Gabriel came down from the hills, and Lajeunesse burnt him with a hot iron, for cutting his bellows in the night, to make himself a bed inside them. To-day he came again to do some terrible thing to the blacksmith or the girl, and you have seen--ah, the poor Gabriel, and I killed him!” “I killed him,” said Valmond--“I, Parpon, my friend.” “My poor fool, my wild dog!” wailed the dwarf mournfully. “Parpon,” asked Valmond suddenly, “where is your mother?”