Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/459

Rh little less and I should have been hanged. They would have been sorry for it to-day."

"Would not you like to do something for her?"

"I ask nothing better, Dona Claude; but what if I entangle myself in some villanous affair?"

"What matters it?"

"Bah! what matters it? You are good, master, that you are! I have two great works already begun."

The priest smote his brow. In spite of the calm which he affected, a violent gesture betrayed his internal convulsions from time to time.

"How is she to be saved?"

Gringoire said to him; "Master, I will reply to you; Il padelt, which means in Turkish, 'God is our hope.'"

"How is she to be saved?" repeated Claude dreamily.

Gringoire smote his brow in his turn.

"Listen, master. I have imagination; I will devise expedients for you. What if one were to ask her pardon from the king?"

"Of Louis XI.! A pardon!"

"Why not?"

"To take the tiger's bone from him!"

Gringoire began to seek fresh expedients.

"Well, stay! Shall I address to the midwives a request accompanied by the declaration that the girl is with child!"

This made the priest's hollow eye flash.

"With child! knave! do you know anything of this?"

Gringoire was alarmed by his air. He hastened to say, "Oh, no, not I! Our marriage was a real forismaritagium. I stayed outside. But one might obtain a respite, all the same."

"Madness! Infamy! Hold your tongue!"

"You do wrong to get angry," muttered Gringoire. "One obtains a respite; that does no harm to any one, and allows the midwives, who are poor women, to earn forty deniers parisis."

The priest was not listening to him!

"But she must leave that place, nevertheless!" he murmured, "the decree is to be executed within three days.