A look of cunning suddenly drove away the expression of conscious guilt
in Jeanne's face. She dropped her eyes on the floor, mumbled
inarticulately a moment, and then said shiftily, "You have perhaps a few
sous in your pocket, Madame, to show good-will to the sorceress; for
without good-will she cannot tell you what you seek to know."

Aimée's keen eyes flashed, as drawing forth two sous from her pocket,
she said in a tone of incisive contempt, "You shall have these,
Mademoiselle, but not till you have told me the whole truth, as you
would to the curé at confession. Come then--say."

The sorceress began with shuffling tones and glances, which grew more
sure as she went on:

"I watched for the little one returning on the afternoon of Sunday--_he_
told me to do so. I was to give her the message that Antoine desired to
meet with her at the entrance of the Dwarf's Valley: I had but to give
the message: it was not my fault. I am but a poor old woman that does
the bidding of others."

"Well, well," said Aimée, impatiently, "what else did you tell her?"

Jeanne looked at her interlocutor again, and a strange expression grew
in her eyes.

"It is Jeanne that knows the Evil Ones, that knows their shape and their
speech. She knows them when they walk among men, and she knows them in
their homes in the dark valley."

"Chut, chut," cried Aimée, the more irritably that her maternal feelings