Aurora straightened up with angry astonishment and drew in her breath for an emphatic speech, but Clotilde, liberating her own hands, took Aurora’s, and hurriedly said, turning still paler as she spoke: 

“’E godd his ’ead strigue!  ’Tis all knog in be’ine!  ’E come in blidding—­”

“In w’ere?” cried Aurora.

“In ’is shob.”

“You was in dad shob of ’Sieur Frowenfel’?”

“I wend ad ’is shob to pay doze rend.”

“How—­you wend ad ’is shob to pay—­”

Clotilde produced the bracelet.  The two looked at each other in silence for a moment, while Aurora took in without further explanation Clotilde’s project and its failure.

“An’ ’Sieur Frowenfel’—­dey kill ‘im?  Ah! Ma chere, fo’ wad you mague me to hass all dose question?”

Clotilde gave a brief account of the matter, omitting only her conversation with Frowenfeld.

“Mais, oo strigue ’im?” demanded Aurora, impatiently.

“Addunno!” replied the other.  “Bud I does know ’e is hinnocen’!”

A small scouting-party of tears reappeared on the edge of her eyes.

“Innocen’ from wad?”

Aurora betrayed a twinkle of amusement.

“Hev’ryt’in’, iv you pliz!” exclaimed Clotilde, with most uncalled-for warmth.

“An’ you crah bic-ause ’e is nod guiltie?”

“Ah! foolish!”

“Ah, non, my chile, I know fo’ wad you cryne:  ’t is h-only de sighd of de blood.”

“Oh, sighd of blood!”

Clotilde let a little nervous laugh escape through her dejection.

“Well, then,”—­Aurora’s eyes twinkled like stars,—­“id muz be bic-ause ‘Sieur Frowenfel’ bump ’is ’ead—­ha, ha, ha!”

“’Tis nod tru’!” cried Clotilde; but, instead of laughing, as Aurora had supposed she would, she sent a double flash of light from her eyes, crimsoned, and retorted, as the tears again sprang from their lurking-place, “You wand to mague ligue you don’t kyah!  But I know!  I know verrie well!  You kyah fifty time’ as mudge as me!  I know you!  I know you!  I bin wadge you!”

Aurora was quite dumb for a moment, and gazed at Clotilde, wondering what could have made her so unlike herself.  Then she half rose up, and, as she reached forward an arm, and laid it tenderly about her daughter’s neck, said: 

“Ma lill dotter, wad dad meggin you cry?  Iv you will tell me wad dad mague you cry, I will tell you—­on ma second word of honor”—­she rolled up her fist—­“juz wad I thing about dad ’Sieur Frowenfel’!”

“I don’t kyah wad de whole worl’ thing aboud ’im!”

“Mais, anny’ow, tell me fo’ wad you cryne!”

Clotilde gazed aside for a moment and then confronted her questioner consentingly.

“I tole ’im I knowed ’e was h-innocen’.”

“Eh, Men, dad was h-only de poli-i-idenez.  Wad ’e said?”

“E said I din knowed ’im ’tall.”