the priest. The priest, beside himself, was about to seize it.

But the young girl was quicker than be; she wrenched the knife from Quasimodo’s hands and burst into a frantic laugh, — “Approach,” she said to the priest.

She held the blade high. The priest remained undecided.

She would certainly have struck him.

Then she added with a pitiless expression, well aware that she was about to pierce the priest’s heart with thousands of red-hot irons, —

“Ah! I know that Phoebus is not dead!

The priest overturned Quasimodo on the floor with a kick, and, quivering with rage, darted back under the vault of the staircase.