"What do you want with me?" Christine asked.
"I have a message from friend Roger. You are to remain in hiding until he sends to you again. Count Felix must believe that Duke Maurice is dead. Since leaving you in the forest, friend Roger has learnt strange things."
"What has he learnt?"
"That Count Felix will never be Duke of Montvilliers," Jean answered.
"But tell me why? What makes him say this? Come, Jean, tell me quickly. I have no wit to-night to think of questions to drag out your story."
"There is no story to be dragged out, mademoiselle. That is all the message, all I have to tell."
"I must know more," said Christine.
"I know no more," the dwarf answered. "Friend Roger was mysterious. He would tell me more presently, he said, but to-night there was work to do; and I have done it, although 'tis a marvel I am here at all. I have been hunted half over the city like a rabbit, and for longer than I care to remember have lain on my stomach on the wall of yonder garden, so still that a cat climbed over me and found nothing strange with the wall."
"Where is Roger Herrick?" asked Christine.
"That he bade me not tell you. He said you would not understand. I do not understand either. It is a place I should not choose to hide in. But there, it's a good thing all animals do not make for the same hole."