“It is no matter. She has forgotten--she is safe.” “If she should see him!” said Valmond tentatively, for a sudden thought had come to him that the mother of these misfits of God was Madame Degardy. Parpon sprang to his-feet. “She shall not see him. Ah, you know! You have guessed?” he cried. “She is all safe with me.” “She shall not see him. She shall not know,” repeated the dwarf, his eyes huddling back in his head with anguish. “Does she not remember you?” “She does not remember the living, but she would remember the dead. She shall not know,” he said again. Then, seizing Valmond’s hand, he kissed it, and, without a word, trotted from the room--a ludicrously pathetic figure. CHAPTER IX Now and again the moon showed through the cloudy night, and the air was soft and kind. Parpon left behind him the village street, and, after a half mile or more of travel, came to a spot where a crimson light showed beyond a little hill. He halted a moment, as if to think and listen, then crawled up the bank and looked down. Beside a still smoking lime-kiln an abandoned fire was burning down into red coals. The little hut of the lime-burner was beyond in a hollow, and behind that again was a lean-to, like a small shed or stable. Hither stole the dwarf, first pausing to listen a moment at the door of the hut. Leaning into the darkness of the shed, he gave a soft, crooning call. Low growls of dogs came in quick reply. He stepped inside, and spoke to them: “Good dogs! good dogs! good Musket, Coffee, Filthy, Jo-Jo--steady, steady, idiots!” for the huge brutes were nosing him, throwing themselves against: him, and whining gratefully. Feeling the wall, he took down some harness, and, in the dark, put a set on each dog--mere straps for the shoulders, halters, and traces; called to them sharply to be quiet, and, keeping hold of their collars, led them out into the night. He paused to listen again. Presently he drove the dogs across the road, and attached them to a flat vehicle, without wheels or runners, used by Garotte for the drawing of lime and stones. It was not so heavy as many machines of the kind, and at a quick word from the dwarf the dogs darted away. Unseen, a mysterious figure hurried on after them, keeping well in the shadow of the trees fringing the side of the road.