How did you contrive to escape from the claws of Quasimodo ?" This question made the gypsy shudder.
"Oh! the horrible hunchback," said she, hiding her face in her hands.
And she shuddered as though with violent cold.
"Horrible, in truth," said Gringoire, who clung to his idea; "but how did you manage to escape him ?" La Esmeralda smiled, sighed, and remained silent.
"Do you know why he followed you ?" began Gringoire again, seeking to return to his question by a circuitous route.
"I don't know," said the young girl, and she added hastily, "but you were following me also, why were you following me ?" "In good faith," responded Gringoire, "I don't know either." Silence ensued.

Gringoire slashed the table with his knife.

The young girl smiled and seemed to be gazing through the wall at something.

All at once she began to sing in a barely articulate voice,-- _Quando las pintadas aves, Mudas estan, y la tierra_--* * When the gay-plumaged birds grow weary, and the earth-- She broke off abruptly, and began to caress Djali.
"That's a pretty animal of yours," said Gringoire.
"She is my sister," she answered.
"Why are you called 'la Esmeralda ?'" asked the poet.
"I do not know." "But why ?" She drew from her bosom a sort of little oblong bag, suspended from her neck by a string of adrezarach beads.

This bag exhaled a strong odor of camphor.