M. Linders apparently saw no danger to Madelon's principles in these new friendships, or else, perhaps, he was bent on carrying out his plan of letting her get used to things; at any rate, he did not interfere with her spending as much time as she liked with both painter and musician; and every day through the winter she grew fonder of the society of the old violinist. He was a lonely man, who lived with his music and his books, cared little for company, and had few friends; but he liked to see Madelon flitting about his dusky room, carrying with her bright suggestions of the youth, and gaiety, and hopefulness he had almost forgotten. He talked to her, taught her songs, played to her as much as she liked, and often gave her and her father orders for the theatre to which he belonged, where, with delight, she would recognise his familiar face as he nodded and smiled at her from the orchestra. He instructed her, too, in music; made her learn her notes, and practise on the jangling old piano, and even, at her particular request, to scrape a little on the violin; but she cared most for singing, and for hearing him play and talk. She never felt shy or timid with him, and one day, at the end of a long rhapsody about German music and German composers, she asked him innocently enough—
"Who was Beethoven, and Mozart, and—and all those others you talk about? I never heard of them before."
"Never before!" he cried, in a sort of comic amazement and dismay. "Here is a little girl who has lived half her life in Germany, who talks German, and yet never heard of Beethoven, nor of Mozart, nor of—of all those others! Listen, then—they were some of the greatest men that ever lived."
And, indeed, Madelon heard enough about them after that; for delighted to have a small, patient listener, to whom he could rhapsodize as much as he pleased in his native tongue, the violinist henceforth lost no opportunity of delivering his little lectures, and would harangue for an hour together, not only about music and musicians, but about a thousand other things—a queer, high-flown, rambling jumble, often enough, which Madelon could not possibly follow nor understand, but to which she nevertheless liked to listen. A safer teacher she could hardly have had; she gained much positive information from him, and when he got altogether beyond her, she remained impressed with the conviction that he was speaking from the large experiences of deep, mysterious wisdom and knowledge, and sat listening with a reverential awe, as to some strange, lofty strain, coming to her from some higher and nobler region than she could hope to attain to as yet, and of which she could in some sort catch the spirit, though she could not enter into the idea. At the same time there was a certain childlike vein running through all the old man's rambling talk, which made it, after all, not unsuited to meet the instinctive aspirations of a child's mind. With him love and veneration for greatness and beauty, in every form, amounted almost to a passion, which was still fresh and genuine, as in the lad to whom the realization of the wordblaséseems the one incomprehensible impossibility of life. In the simple reverence with which he spoke of the great masters of his art, Madelon might have recognized the same spirit as that which animated the American; and as the artist had once uncovered at the name of Raffaelle and Lionardo da Vinci, so did the musician figuratively bow down at the shrines of Handel, or Bach, or Beethoven. From both these men, so different in other respects, the child began to learn the same lesson, which in all her life before she had never even heard hinted at.
All this, however, almost overtaxed our little Madelon's faculties, and it was not surprising that, as the winter wore on, a change gradually came over her. In truth, both intellect and imagination were being overstrained by the constant succession of new images, new ideas, new thoughts, that presented themselves to her. She by no means grew accustomed to churches—not in the sense, at any rate, which her father had hoped would be the result of his new system. It was not possible that she should, while so much remained that was mysterious and unexplained; she only wearied her small brain with the effort to find the explanation for all these new perplexities, which she felt must exist somewhere, though she could not find it; add to this, these long conversations, this music, with its strange, vague suggestions, and even the thousand novelties of the picturesque Italian life around her, not one of which was lost on her impressionable little mind, and we need not wonder that she began to suffer from an excitement that gathered in strength from day to day. She grew thin, morbid, nervous, ate almost nothing, and lost her usual vivacity, sitting absorbed in dreamy fits, from which it was difficult to arouse her, and which were very different from the quiet, happy silence in which she used to remain contented by her father's side for hours. All night she was haunted with what she had seen by day in picture-galleries and churches. The heavenly creations of Fra Angelico or Sandro Botticelli, of Ghirlandaio or Raffaelle, over which she had mused and pondered, re-produced themselves in dreams, with the intensity and reality of actual visions, and with accessories borrowed from all that, in her new life, had impressed itself most vividly on her imagination. Once more she would stand in the vast church, the censers swinging, the organ pealing overhead, round her a great throng of beatified adoring saints, with golden glories, with palms, and tall white lilies, and many- coloured garments; or pillars and arches would melt away, and she would find herself wandering through flower-enamelled grass, in fair rose-gardens of Paradise; or radiant forms would come gliding towards her through dark-blue skies; or the heavens themselves would seem to open, and reveal a blaze of glory, where, round a blue-robed, star-crowned Madonna, choirs of rapturous angels repeated the divine melodies she had heard faintly echoed in the violinist's dim little room. All day long these dreams clung to her, oppressing her with their strange unreal semblance of reality, associating themselves with every glowing sunset, with every starry sky, till the pictures themselves that had suggested them looked pale by comparison.
She was, in fact, going through a mental crisis, such as, in other circumstances, and under fostering influences, has produced more than one small ecstatic enthusiast; the infant shining light of some Methodist conventicle; the saintly child visionary of some Catholic convent. But Madelon had no one to foster, nor to interpret for her these feverish visions, so inexplicable to herself, poor child! To the good-natured, careless, jovial American, she would not have even hinted at them for worlds, and not less carefully did she shun appealing to her father for sympathy. That contemptuous "vraiment" dwelt in her memory, not as a matter of resentment, but as something to be avoided henceforth at the cost of any amount of self- repression. She would sit leaning her languid little head on his shoulder; but when he anxiously asked her what ailed her, she could only reply, "I don't know, papa." And indeed she did not know; nor even if she had, could she have found the words with which to have explained it to him. It was, after all, the old German who won her confidence at last. There was, as we have said, something simple, genuine, homely about the old man; a reminiscence, perhaps, of his homely Fatherland still clinging about him, after more than forty years of voluntary exile, which Madelon could well appreciate, though she could not have defined it; for a child judges more by instinct than reflection, and it was through no long process of reasoning that she had arrived at the certainty that she would be met here by neither contempt nor indifference. Moreover, his generally lofty and slightly incomprehensible style of conversation, and the endless stores of learning with which she had innocently accredited him, had surrounded him with that vague halo of wisdom and goodness, so dear to the hearts of children of larger as of smaller growth, and which they are so eager to recognize, that they do not always distinguish between the false and the true. From the very beginning of their acquaintance, it had occurred to Madelon that she might be able to gain some information on that subject, which her father had pronounced to be above her comprehension as yet; but which, on reflection, and encouraged by a Nanette's example, she felt quite sure she could understand if it were only explained to her. Twenty times had that still unanswered question trembled on her lips, but a shy timidity, not so much of her old friend as of the subject itself, which had become invested in her mind with a kind of awful mystery, to which a hundred circumstances daily contributed, checked her at the moment of utterance.
One evening, however, she was sitting as usual at the window in the old man's room. The sun had set, the short twilight was drawing to a close, church bells were ringing, down in the city yellow lights were gleaming in windows here and there, above, the great sky rounded upward from a faint glow on the horizon through imperceptible gradations of tint, to pure depths of transparent blue overhead, where stars were beginning to flash and tremble; within, in the gloom, the musician sat playing a sacred melody of Spohr's, and as Madelon listened, some subtle affinity between this hour and the first one she had spent in the church touched her, and her eyes filled with sudden tears of painful ecstasy. As the old German ceased, she went up to him with an impulse that admitted of no hesitation, and, as well as she could, told him all that was in her mind—her dreams, her strange weird fancies, all that for the last few months had been haunting and oppressing her with its weight of mystery. "Papa said I could not understand," she said in conclusion, "but I think I could. Will you not explain it to me? Can you not tell me what it all means, and who—who is God?"
The German had heard in silence till then, but at this last question he started from his listening attitude.
"Was—was—" he stammered, and suddenly rising—"Ach, mein Gott!" he cried, with the familiar ejaculation, "to ask me!—to ask me!"
He walked twice up and down the room, as stirred by some hidden emotion, his head bowed, his hands behind his back, murmuring to himself, and then stopped where Madelon was standing by the window. She looked up, half trembling, into the rugged face bent over her. He was her priest for the moment, standing as it were between earth and heaven—her confessor, to whom she had revealed the poor little secrets of her heart; and she waited with a sort of awe for his answer.
"My child," he said at length, looking down sadly enough into her eager, inquiring eyes, "when I was no older than thou art, I had a pious, gentle mother, at whose knee night and morning I said my prayers—and believed. If she were alive now, I would say, 'Go to her, and she will tell thee of all these things'— but do not speak of them to me. Old Karl Wendler is neither good, nor wise, nor believing enough to instruct thee, an innocent child."
He made this little speech very gently and solemnly; then turned away abruptly, took up his hat, and left the room without another word. Madelon stood still for a minute baffled, repulsed, with a sort of bruised, sore feeling at her heart, and yet with a new sense of wondering pity, roused by something in his words and manner; then she too left the room, and though the darkness crept softly downstairs.
So ended this little episode with the violinist. Not that she did not visit and sit with him as much as before; the very next day, when she returned, rather shyly, upstairs, she found him sitting in the old place, with the old nod and smile to welcome her, but somehow he managed to put things on a different footing—he spared her his long metaphysical discourses, and talked to her more as the child that she was, laughing, joking, and telling her queer hobgoblin and fairy stories, some of which she knew before indeed, but which he related with a quaint simplicity and naïveté, which gave them a fresh charm for her; and under this new aspect of things, she brightened up, began to lose her fits of dreaminess, to chatter as in old times, and cheered many an hour of the musician's solitary life. The American artist, too, left Florence about this time for a visit to Rome; and during his absence theatelierwas closed, and wandering through churches and picture galleries were exchanged for long excursions into the country with her father; by degrees dreams, fancies, visions floated away, and Madelon became herself again.
She had gone through a phase, and one not altogether natural to her, and which readily passed away with the abnormal conditions that had occasioned it. She was by no means one of those dreamy, thoughtful, often melancholy children who startle us by the precocious grasp of their intellect, by their intuitive perception of truths which we had deemed far above their comprehension. Madelon's precocity was of quite another order. In her quick, impulsive, energetic little mind there was much that was sensitive and excitable, little that was morbid or unhealthy. One might see that, with her, action would always willingly take the place of reflection; that her impulses would have the strength of inspirations; that she would be more ready to receive impressions than to reason upon them. Meditation, comparison, introspection, were wholly foreign to this little, eager, impetuous nature, however they might be forced upon it in the course of years and events; and with her keen sense of enjoyment in all glad outward influences, one might have feared that the realities of life present to her would too readily preclude any contemplation of its hidden possibilities, but for a lively, susceptible imagination, which would surely intervene to prevent any such tendency being carried out to its too prosaic end. It was through appeals to her imagination and affection, rather than to her reason and intellect, that Madeleine could be influenced; and whatever large sympathies with humanity she might acquire through life, whatever aspirations after a high and noble ideal, whatever gleams of inspiration from the great beyond that lies below the widest, as well as the narrowest horizon, might visit her—all these would come to her, we may fancy, through the exercise of pure instincts and a sensitive imagination, rather than through the power of logical deduction from given causes.
From our small, ten-year-old Madelon, however, all this still lay hidden; for the present, the outward pressure, which had weighed too heavily on her little mind and brain, removed, she returned with a glad reaction to her old habits of thought and speech. Not entirely indeed; the education she had received, remained and worked; the "obstinate questionings," an answer to which she had twice vainly sought, were unforgotten, and still awaited their reply. This little Madelon, to whom the golden gates had been opened, though ever so slightly—to whom the divine, lying all about her and within her, had been revealed, though ever so dimly—could never be quite the same as the little Madelon who, careless and unthinking, had strayed into the great church that summer morning six months ago; but the child herself was as yet hardly conscious of this, and neither, we may be sure, was M. Linders, as with renewed cheerfulness, and spirits, and chatter, she danced along by his side under the new budding trees, under the fair blue skies.
It was soon after this, when the delicious promise of an early spring was brightening the streets and gardens of Florence, filling them with sunshine and flowers, that another shadow fell upon the brightness of Madelon's life, and one so dark and real, as to make all others seem faint and illusory by comparison. Her father had a serious illness. He had not been well all the winter; and one day, Madelon, coming down from the violinist's room, had been frightened almost out of her small wits at finding him lying back unconscious in a chair in their littlesalon. She called the old woman who acted as their servant to her assistance, and between them they had soon succeeded in restoring him to consciousness, when he had made light of it, saying it was merely a fit of giddiness, which would have passed off. He had refused to be alarmed, or to send for a doctor, even after a second and third attack of the same kind; but then a fever, which in the mild spring weather was lurking about, lying in wait of victims, seized him, and laid him fairly prostrate.
His illness never took a really dangerous turn, but it kept him weak and helpless for some weary weeks, during which Madelon learnt to be a most efficient little nurse, taking turns with the old servant and with the violinist, who willingly came down from his upper regions to do all he could to help his little favourite. In some respects she, perhaps, made the best nurse of all, with her small skilful fingers, and entire devotion to her father. She had a curious courage, too, for such an inexperienced child, and the sense of an emergency was quite sufficient to make her conquer the horrible pang it gave her loving little heart to see her father lying racked with pain, unconscious, and sometimes delirious. She never failed to be ready when wanted; the doctor complimented her, and said jokingly that the little Signorina would make a capital doctor's assistant. Her German friend nodded approval, and, best of all, it was always to his Madelon that M. Linders turned in his most weary moments—from her that he liked to receive drinks and medicine; and she it was who, as he declared, arranged his pillows and coverings more comfortably than anyone else. In delirium he asked for her continually; his eyes sought her when she was not in the room, and lighted up when she came with her little noiseless step to his bedside. The old German, who had had a strong dislike to, and prejudice against this man, took almost a liking to him, as he noted the great love existing between him and his little daughter.
The American did not return till M. Linders was nearly well again, and thinking of departure. Madelon was in despair at the idea of leaving Florence; it had been more like home to her than any place she had yet known, and it almost broke her heart to think of parting with her old German friend; but M. Linders was impatient to be gone. He wanted change of air, he said, after his illness; but, indeed, had other reasons which he proclaimed less openly, but which were far more imperative, and made him anxious to pay an earlier visit to Germany this year than was usual with him. Certain speculations, on the success of which he had counted, had failed, so that a grandcoupat Homburg or Baden seemed no less necessary than desirable to set him straight again with the world, and he accordingly fixed on a day towards the end of April for their departure.
The American made a festive little supper the evening before in hisatelier, but it was generally felt to be a melancholy failure, for not even the artist's rather forced gaiety, nor M. Linders' real indifference, could enliven it. As for the old German, he sat there, saying little, eating less, and smoking a great deal; and Madelon at his side was speechless, only rousing herself later in the evening to coax him into playing once more all her favourite tunes. Everyone, except, perhaps, M. Linders, felt more or less sorry at the breaking up of a pleasant little society which had lasted for some months, and the violinist almost felt as if he were being separated from his own child. Madelon wished him good-bye that night, but she ran upstairs very early the next morning to see him once more before starting.
The old man was greatly moved; he was standing looking sadly out of the window when she came in, and when he saw her in her little travelling cloak, the tears began to run down his rugged old cheeks.
"God bless thee, my little one!" he said. "I shall miss thee sorely—but thou wilt not forget me?"
"Never, never!" cries Madelon, with a little sob, and squeezing the kind hands that held hers so tightly.
"And if I should never see thee again," said the German, in broken accents, "if—if—remember, I——" He hesitated and stammered, and M. Linders' voice was heard calling Madelon.
"I must go," she said, "papa is calling me; but I will never forget you—never; ah! you have been so good, so kind to me. See here," she said, unclosing one of her hands which she had kept tightly shut, and showing the little green and gold fish Horace Graham had given her years before, "I promised never to part with this, but I have nothing else—and—and I love you so much—will you have it?"
"No, no," said the old man, smiling and shaking his head, "keep thy promise, and thy treasure, my child; I do not require that to remind me of thee. Farewell!"
He put her gently out of the door as her father's step was heard coming upstairs, and closed it after her. She never did see him again, for he died in less than two years after their parting.
M. Linders went to Homburg, to Baden, to Wiesbaden, but he was no longer the man he had been before his illness; he won largely, indeed, at times, but he lost as largely at others, playing with a sort of reckless, feverish impatience, instead of with the steady coolness that had distinguished him formerly. Old acquaintance who met him said that M. Linders was a broken man, and that his best days were over: men who had been accustomed to bet on his success, shrugged their shoulders, and sought for some steadier and luckier player to back; he himself, impatient of ill-luck, and of continual defeat in the scenes of his former triumphs, grew restless and irritable, wandered from place to place in search of better fortune and better health, and at length, at the end of a fortnight's stay at Wiesbaden, after winning a large sum atrouge-et-noir, and losing half of it the next day, announced abruptly that he was tired of Germany, and should set off at once for Paris. Madelon had noticed the alteration in her father less than anyone else perhaps; she was used to changes of fortune, and whatever he might feel he never showed it in his manner to her; outwardly, at least, this summer had appeared to her very similar to any preceding one, and she was too much accustomed to M. Linders' sudden moves, to find anything unusual in this one, although, dictated as it was by a caprice of weariness and disgust, it took them away from the Germany tables just at the height of the season. Once more, then, the two set out together, and towards the middle of August found themselves established in their old quarters in the Paris Hotel, where Madame Linders had died, and where Madame Lavaux still reigned head of the establishment.
After five Years.
One evening, about three weeks after their arrival in Paris, Madelon was standing at a window at the end of the long corridor into which M. Linders' apartment opened; the moon was shining brightly, and she had a book in her hand, which she was reading by its clear light, stopping, however, every minute to gaze down into the front courtyard of the hotel, which lay beneath the window, quiet, almost deserted after the bustle of the day, and full of white moonlight and black shadows. Her father was out, and she was watching for his return, though it was now long past eleven o'clock.
There was nothing unusual on her part in this late vigil, for she was quite accustomed to sit up for her father, when he spent his evenings away from home; but there must have been something strange and forlorn-looking in the little figure standing there all alone at such an hour, for a gentleman, who had come in late from the theatre, paused as he was turning the key of the door before entering his room, looked at her once or twice, and, after a moment's hesitation, walked up to the window. Madelon did not notice him till he was close behind her, and then turned round with a little start, dropping her book.
"I did not think it was you—" she began; then seeing a stranger, stopped short in the middle of her speech.
"I am afraid I have startled you," said the gentleman in English-French, but with a pleasant voice and manner, "and disappointed you too."
"I beg your pardon, Monsieur," she answered, "I thought it was papa; I have been looking for him so long," and she turned round to the window again.
It was five years since Horace Graham and Madeleine had spent an hour together in the courtyard at Chaudfontaine, so that it was not surprising that they did not at once recognise each other at this second unforeseen meeting; the young man, as well as the child, had then been of an age to which five years cannot be added without bringing with them most appreciable changes. For Graham, these years had been precisely that transition period in which a lad separates himself from the aggregate mass of youth, and stands forth in the world as a man of his own right, according to that which is in him. This tall, thin, brown young army doctor, who has passed brilliant examinations, who is already beginning to be known favourably in the profession, whose name has appeared at the end of more than one approved article in scientific Reviews; who has travelled, seen something of Italy, Switzerland, Belgium; who for five years has been studying, thinking, living through youthful experiences and failures, and out-living some youthful illusions, cannot fail, one may be sure, to be a different personage, in many respects, from the fresh-hearted medical student who had sauntered away an idle Sunday amongst the woods and valleys round Chaudfontaine, and had looked with curious, half wondering eyes at the new little world disclosed to him at the hotel. As for our little Madelon, the small, round, pinafored child was hardly recognisable in this slim little girl, in white frock, with brown hair that hung in short wayward tangling waves, instead of curling in soft ringlets all over her head; and yet Graham, who rarely forgot a face, was haunted by a vague remembrance of her eyes, with the peculiar look, half-startled, half-confiding, with which they met the first glance of strangers. Madelon's brown eyes were the greatest charm of a face which was hardly pretty yet, though it had the promise of beauty in after years; to liken them to those of some dumb, soft, dark-eyed animal is to use a trite comparison; and yet there is, perhaps, no other that so well describes eyes such as these, which seem charged with a meaning beyond that which their owner is able to express in words, or is, perhaps, even conscious of. When seen in children, they seem to contain a whole prophecy of their future lives, and in Madelon they had probably a large share in the powers of attraction which she undoubtedly possessed; few could resist their mute appeal, which, child as she was, went beyond her own thought, and touched deeper sympathies than any she could yet have known.
There was a moment's silence after Madelon had spoken, and then she once more turned from the window with a disappointed air.
"Pardon, Monsieur," she said again, "but can you tell me what time it is? Is it past eleven?"
"It is more than half-past," said Graham, looking at his watch. "Have you been waiting here long?"
"Since ten o'clock," said Madelon, "papa said he would be in by ten. I cannot think where he can be."
"He has probably found something to detain him," suggestedGraham.
"No," answered Madelon, rejecting this obvious proposition; "for he had an appointment here; there is some one waiting for him now."
"Then he has perhaps come in without your knowing it?"
"I do not think so," said Madelon, "he would have called me; and besides, I should have seen him cross the courtyard. I saw you come in just now, Monsieur."
Nevertheless she left her station by the window, and moved slowly along the passage to their apartment; it was just opposite Graham's, and as she went in, leaving the door open, Horace, who had followed her without any very definite purpose, looked in. It was a tolerably large room, with a door to the left opening into a smaller apartment, Utrecht velvet chairs and sofa, a mantelpiece also covered with velvet, on which stood a clock, a tall looking-glass, and two lighted wax candles; a table in the middle with some packs of cards, and a liqueur bottle and glasses, and a bed on one side opposite the fireplace. The window looked on to a side street, noisy with the incessant rattling of vehicles, and so narrow that the numerous lighted interiors of the houses opposite were visible to the most casual observer. A smell of smoking pervaded the room, explained by the presence of a young man, who held a cigar in one hand, whilst he leaned half out of the window, over the low iron balcony in front, shouting to some one in the street below. He looked round as Madelon came in, and slowly drew himself back into the room, exhibiting a lean, yellow face, surrounded with dishevelled hair, and ornamented by black unkempt beard and moustache.
"Monsieur votre pèredoes not arrive apparently, Mademoiselle," he said.
"I have not seen him come in, Monsieur," answered Madelon; "I thought he was perhaps here."
"Not at all, I have seen nothing of him this evening. But this is perhaps a trick that Monsieur le Papa is playing me; he fears to give me his little revenge of which he spoke, and wishes to keep out of my way. What do you say to that, Mademoiselle?"
"I am quite sure it is not so," answered Madelon, with a little defiant air. "I heard papa say it was quite by chance he had lost all that money to you, for you did not understand the first principles of the game."
"Ah! he said that? But it is lucky for us other poor devils that we have these chances sometimes! You will at least admit that, Mademoiselle?"
"Papa plays better than anyone," says Madelon, retreating from argument to the safer ground of assertion, and still standing in the middle of the room in her defiant attitude, with her hands clasped behind her.
"Without a doubt, Mademoiselle; but then, as he says, we also have our chances. Well, I cannot wait for mine this evening, for it is nearly midnight, and I have another appointment. These gentlemen will wonder what has become of me. Mademoiselle, I have the honour to wish you good evening."
He made a profound bow, and left the room.
Madelon gave a great sigh, and then came out into the passage again where Horace was standing. He had been a somewhat bewildered spectator of this queer little interview, but the child evidently saw nothing out of the way in it, for she made no remark upon it, and only said rather piteously,
"I cannot imagine where papa can be; I do wish he would come back."
"Does he often stay out so late as this?" asked Graham.
"Oh! yes, often, but not when he says he is coming in early, or when he is expecting anyone."
"And do you know where he is gone?"
"No, not at all. He said he was going to dine with some gentlemen, but I don't know where! Oh! do you think anything— anything can have happened?" cried Madelon, her hidden anxiety suddenly finding utterance.
"Indeed I do not," answered Graham, in his kindest voice. "His friends have persuaded him to stay late, I have no doubt; you must not be so uneasy—these things often happen, you know. Let us go and look out of the window again; perhaps we shall see him just coming in."
They went to the end of the corridor accordingly; but no one was to be seen, except the man who had just left M. Linders' apartment walking briskly across the moonlight space below, the great doors of theporte-cochèreclosing after him with a clang that resounded through the silent courtyard. Graham had nothing further to say in the way of consolation; he could think of no more possible contingencies to suggest, and, indeed, it was useless to go on reasoning concerning perfectly unknown conditions. Madelon, however, seemed a little reassured by his confident tone, and he changed the subject by asking her whether the gentleman who had just left was a friend of hers.
"Who? Monsieur Legros?" Madelon answered. "No, I don't know him much, and I do not like him at all; he comes sometimes to play with papa."
"To play with him?"
"Yes, at cards, you know—atécarté, orpiquet, or one of those games."
"And it was with him that your father had an appointment?"
"Yes," said Madelon; "he came last night, and papa told him to be here again this evening at ten, and that is why I cannot think why he does not come."
She turned again disconsolately to the window, and there was another pause. Madelon relapsed into the silence habitual to her with strangers, and Graham hardly knew how to continue the conversation; yet he was unwilling to leave the child alone with her anxiety at that late hour: and besides, he was haunted by vague, floating memories that refused to shape themselves definitely. Some time—somewhere—he had heard or seen, or dreamt of some one—he could not catch the connecting link which would serve to unite some remote, foregone experience with his present sensations.
He moved a little away from the window, and in so doing his foot struck against the book which Madelon had dropped on first seeing him, and he stooped to pick it up. It was a German story-book, full of bright coloured pictures; so he saw as he opened it and turned over the leaves, scarcely thinking of what he did, when his eye was suddenly arrested by the inscription on the fly-leaf. The book had been given to Madelon only the year before by a German lady she had met at Chaudfontaine, and there was her name, "Madeleine Linders," that of the donor, the date, and below, "Hôtel des Bains, Chaudfontaine." It was a revelation to Horace. Of course he understood it all now. Here was the clue to his confused recollections, to the strange little scene he had just witnessed. Another moonlit courtyard came to his remembrance, a gleaming, rushing river, a background of shadowy hills, and a little coy, wilful, chattering girl, with curly hair and great brown eyes—those very eyes that had been perplexing him not ten minutes ago.
"I think you and I have met before," he said to Madelon, smiling; "but I daresay you don't remember much about it, though I recollect you very well now."
"We have met before?" said Madelon. "Pardon, Monsieur, but I do not very well recall it."
"At Chaudfontaine, five years ago, when you were quite a little girl. You are Madeleine Linders, are you not?"
"Yes, I am Madeleine Linders," she answered. "I have often been at Chaudfontaine; did you stay at the hotel there?"
"Only for one night," said Graham; "but you and I had a long talk together in the courtyard that evening. Let me see, how can I recall it to you? Ah! there was a little green and gold fish——"
"Was that you?" cried Madelon, her face suddenly brightening with a flush of intelligence and pleasure. "I have it still, that little fish. Ah! how glad I am now that I did not give it away! That gentleman was so kind to me, I shall never forget him. But it was you!" she added, with a sudden recognition of Graham's identity.
"It was indeed," he said laughing. "So you have thought of me sometimes since then? But I am afraid you would not have remembered me if I had not told you who I was."
"I was such a little girl then," said Madelon colouring. "Five years ago—why I was not six years old; but I remember you very well now," she added, smiling up at him. "I have often thought of you, Monsieur, and I am so glad to see you again."
She said it with a little naïve air of frankness and sincerity which was very engaging, giving him her hand as she spoke.
"I am glad you have not quite forgotten me," said Graham, sitting down by her on the window seat; "but indeed you have grown so much, I am not sure I should have recollected you, if I had not seen your name here. What have you been doing ever since? Have you ever been to Chaudfontaine again?"
"Oh, very often," said Madelon. "We go there almost every yearfor a little while—not this year though, for we were atWiesbaden till three weeks ago, and then papa had to come toParis at once."
"And do you still go about everywhere with your papa, or do you go to school sometimes?"
"To school? oh no, never," said Madelon, not without some wonder at the idea. "Papa would not send me to school. I should not like it at all, and neither would he. I know he would not get on at all well without me, and I love travelling about with him. Last winter we were in Italy."
"And you never come to England?"
"No, never. I asked papa once if he would not go there, and he said no, that we should not like it at all, it was so cold andtristethere, one never amused one's-self."
"But I thought you had some relations there," said Graham."Surely I saw an uncle with you who was English?"
"Oh yes, Uncle Charles; but he never went to England either, and he died a long time ago. I don't know of any other relations."
"So you never talk English now, I suppose? Do you remember telling me to speak English, because I spoke French so funnily?"
"No," said Madelon, colouring and laughing. "How is it possible I can have been so rude, Monsieur? I think you speak it very well. But I have not forgotten my English, for I have some books, and often we meet English or American gentlemen, so that I still talk it sometimes."
"And German too," said Horace, looking at her book.
"Yes, and Italian; I learnt that last winter at Florence. We meet a great many different people, you know, so I don't forget."
"And you are always travelling about?"
"Yes, always; I should not like to live in one place, I think, and papa would not like it either, he says. Do you remember papa, Monsieur?"
"Very well," said Graham; and indeed he recalled perfectly the little scene in the salle-à-manger of the Chaudfontaine hotel— the long dimly lighted room, the two men playing at cards, and the little child nestling close up to the fair one whom she called papa. "Yes, I remember him very well," he added, after a moment's pause.
"How strange that you should see us here again!" said Madelon."Did you know we were staying in the hotel, Monsieur?"
"Not at all," answered Horace, smiling. "I only arrived yesterday, and had no notion that I should find an old acquaintance to welcome me."
"How fortunate that I was waiting here, and that you saw my name in that book," said Madelon, evidently looking on the whole as a great event, brought about by a more remarkable combination of circumstances than everyday life as a rule afforded. "Without that you would not have known who I was, perhaps? Papa will be very glad to see you again. Ah, how I wish he would come!" she added, all her anxieties suddenly revived.
"Do you always sit up for him when he is so late?" saidGraham. "Surely it would be wiser for you to go to bed."
"That is just what I said to Mademoiselle an hour ago," said a kind, cheery voice behind them, belonging to Madame Lavaux, the mistress of the hotel. "Of what use, I say, is it for her to sit up waiting for her papa, who will not come any the sooner for that."
"Ah! Madame, I must wait," said Madelon. "Papa will come soon."
"But,ma chère petite—" began Madame.
"I must wait," repeated Madelon, piteously; "I always sit up for him."
Graham thought he could not do better than leave her in the hands of the landlady, and with a friendly good-night, and a promise to come and see her the next day, he went back to his own room. In a few minutes, he heard Madame pass along the corridor and go upstairs to bed; but, though tired enough himself after a day of Paris sight-seeing, he could not make up his mind to do the same, when, on opening his door, he saw Madelon standing where he had left her. He could not get rid of the thought of this lonely little watcher at the end of the passage, and taking up a book he began to read. From time to time he looked out, but there was no change in the posture of affairs; through the half-open door opposite he could see the lights burning in the still empty room, and the small figure remained motionless at the moonlit window. All sounds of life and movement were hushed in the hotel, all the clocks had long since struck midnight, and he was considering whether he should not go and speak to Madelon again, when he heard a faint cry, and then a rush of light feet along the passage and down the staircase.
"So he has come at last," thought Graham, laying down his book with a sense of relief, not sorry to have his self-imposed vigil brought to an end. He still sat listening, however; his door was ajar, and he thought he should hear the father and child come up together. There was a moment's silence as the sound of the footsteps died away, and then succeeded a quick opening and shutting of doors, the tread of hasty feet, a confusion of many voices speaking at once, a sudden clamour and stir breaking in on the stillness, and then suddenly subdued and hushed, as if to suit the prevailing quiet of the sleeping house.
"Something must have happened," thought Graham. "That poor child!—perhaps her father has, after all, met with some accident!" He left his room and ran quickly downstairs. The confused murmur of voices grew louder as he approached the hall, and on turning the last angle of the staircase, he at once perceived the cause of the disturbance.
A little group was collected in the middle of the hall, the night porter, one or two of the servants of the hotel, and some men in blouses, all gathered round a tall prostrate man, half lying on a bench placed under the centre lamp, half supported by two men, who had apparently just carried him in. He was quite insensible, his head had fallen forward on his breast, and was bound with a handkerchief that had been tied round to staunch the blood from a wound in his forehead; his neckcloth was unfastened and his coat thrown back to give him more air. The little crowd was increasing every moment, as the news spread through the house; theporte-cochèrestood wide open, and outside in the street afiacrecould be seen, standing in the moonlight.
"A doctor must be fetched at once," someone was saying, just as Horace came up and recognized, not without difficulty, in the pale disfigured form before him, the handsome fair-haired M. Linders he had met at Chaudfontaine five years before.
"I am a doctor," he said, coming forward. "Perhaps I can be of some use here."
No one seemed to notice him at first—a lad had already started in quest of a surgeon, and jumping into the emptyfiacrethat had brought the injured man to the hotel, was driving off; but Madelon turned round at the sound of Graham's voice, and looked up in his face with a new expression of hope in her eyes, instead of the blank, bewildered despair with which she had been gazing at her father and the strange faces around. To the poor child it seemed as if she had lived through an unknown space of terror and misery during the few minutes that had elapsed since from the passage window she had seen thefiacrestop, and, with the presentiment of evil which had been haunting her during these last hours of suspense, intensified to conviction, had flown downstairs only to meet her father's insensible form as he was carried in. She was kneeling now by his side, and was chafing one of his cold hands between her poor little trembling fingers; but when she saw Graham standing at the edge of the circle she got up, and went to him.
"Will you come to papa?" she said, taking him by both hands and drawing him forward.
"Don't be frightened," said Horace, in his kind, cheerful voice, trying to encourage her, for her face and lips were colourless, and she was trembling as with a sudden chill. He put one arm round her, and came forward to look at M. Linders.
"Allow me," he said; and this time his voice commanded attention, and imposed a moment's silence on the confusion of tongues. "I am a doctor, and can perhaps be of some use; but I must beg of you not to press round in this way. Can anyone tell me what has happened?" he added, as he bent over M. Linders.
"It was an accident, Monsieur," said a man of the working- class, standing by, "this poor gentleman must have had some kind of fit, I think. I was crossing the Boulevards with him about ten o'clock; there were a good many carriages about, but we were going quietly enough, when suddenly I saw him stop, put his hand to his head, and fall down in the road. I had to run just then to get safely across myself, and when I reached the other side, I saw a great confusion, and heard that a carriage had driven straight over him."
There was a moment's pause, and Madelon said in a tremulous whisper, "Papa used to have vertiges last winter, but he got quite well again."
"To be sure," said Graham; "and so we must hope he will now. That was more than two hours ago," he said, turning to the man—"what have you been doing ever since?"
"We carried him into the nearestcafé, Monsieur, and some proposed taking him to a hospital, but after a time we found a letter in his pocket addressed to this hotel, and we thought it best to bring him here, as he might have friends; so we got afiacre. But it was a long way off, and we were obliged to come very slowly."
"A hospital would perhaps have been the better plan," said Graham; "or you should have found a doctor before moving him. However, now he must be carried upstairs without further delay. My poor child," he said, turning to Madelon, "you can do no good here—you had better go with Madame, who will take care of you; will you not, Madame?" he added, turning to the landlady, who, roused from her bed, had just appeared, after a hasty toilette.
"Yes, yes, she can come with me," said Madame Lavaux, who was not in the best of tempers at the disturbance; "but I beg of you not to make more noise than you can help, Messieurs, or I shall have the whole house disturbed, and half the people leaving to-morrow."
The sad little procession moved quietly enough up the stairs, and along the corridor to M. Linders' room. Graham had gone on in front, but Madame Lavaux had held back Madelon when she would have pressed forward by the side of the men who were carrying her father, and she had yielded at first in sheer bewilderment. She had passed through more than one phase of emotion in the course of the last ten minutes, poor child! The first overwhelming shock and terror had passed away, when Graham's reassuring voice and manner had convinced her that her father was not dead; but she had still felt too stunned and confused to do more than obey passively, as she watched him carefully raised, and slowly carried from the hall. By the time they reached the top of the staircase, however, her natural energy began to reassert itself; and, as she saw him disappear within the bedroom, her impatient eagerness to be at his side again, could not be restrained. His recent illness was still too fresh a memory for the mere sight of his present suffering and insensibility to have any of the terrors of novelty, after the first shock was over, and all her former experiences went to prove that his first words on recovering consciousness would be to ask for her. Her one idea was that she must go at once and nurse him; she had not heeded, nor, perhaps, even heard Graham's last words, and she was about to follow the men into the bedroom, when Madame Lavaux interposed to prevent her.
"Run upstairs to my room,petite," she said; "you will be out of the way there, and I will come to you presently."
"No," said Madelon, refusing point-blank, "I am going with papa."
"But it is not possible, my child; you will only be in the way. You heard what M. le Docteur said?"
"Iwillgo to papa!" cries Madelon, trembling with agitation and excitement; "he will want me, I know he will, I am never in his way! You have no right to prevent my going to him, Madame! Let me pass, I say," for Madame Lavaux was standing between her and the door of the room into which M. Linders had been carried.
"Allons donc, we must be reasonable," says Madame. "Your papa does not want you now, and little girls should do as they are told. If you had gone to bed an hour ago, as I advised, you would have known nothing about all this till to-morrow. Eh, these children! there is no doing anything with them; and these men," she continued, with a sigh, "the noise they make with their great boots! and precisely Madame la Comtesse, aupremier, had anattaque des nerfsthis evening, and said the house was as noisy as a barrack—but these things always happen at unfortunate moments!"
No one answered this little speech, which, in fact, was addressed to no one in particular. It was, perhaps, not altogether Madame Lavaux' fault that through long habit her instincts as the proprietor of a large hotel had ended by predominating so far over her instincts as a woman as always to come to hand first. The nice adjustment between the claims of conscience and the claims of self-interest, between the demands of her bills and the demands of never-satisfied, exacting travellers, alone involved a daily recurring struggle, in which the softer emotions would have been altogether out of place, we may suppose. In the present instance she considered it a hard case that her house should be turned topsy-turvy at such an untimely hour, and its general propriety endangered thereby; and Madelon's grief, which at another time would have excited her compassion, had for the moment taken the unexpected form of determined opposition, and could only be looked upon as another element of disturbance. Madelon herself, however, who could hardly be expected to regard her father's accident with a view to those wider issues that naturally presented themselves to Madame Lavaux, simply felt that she was being cruelly ill-used. She had not attended to a word of this last speech, but nevertheless she had detected the want of sympathy, and it by no means increased her desire to accede to Madame's wishes.
"Iwillgo to papa," she repeated, the sense of antagonism that had come uppermost gaining strength and vehemence from the consciousness of the underlying grief and sore trouble that had aroused it, "or I will stay here if you will not let me pass; rather than go away I will stand here all night."
Graham had heard nothing of this little altercation, but now coming out of the bed-room to speak to Madame Lavaux, he found a most determined little Madelon standing with her hands clasped behind her, and her back set firmly against the wall, absolutely refusing to retreat.
She sprang forward, however, as soon as she saw him.
"I may go to papa now, may I not?" she cried.
"Mademoiselle wants to go to her papa," says Madame, at the same moment, "I beg of you, Monsieur, to tell her it is impossible, and that she had better come with me. She asserts that her father will want her."
"That is all nonsense," said Graham hastily; "of course she cannot come in now," then noticing Madelon's poor little face, alternately white, and flushed with misery and passion, he said, "Listen to me, Madelon; you can do your father no good now. He would not know you, my poor child, and you would only be in the way. But I promise you that by-and-by you shall see him."
"By-and-by," said Madelon; "how soon?"
"As soon as we can possibly manage it."
Nothing, perhaps, would have induced Madelon at that moment to have given into Madame Lavaux' unsupported persuasions, but she yielded at once to Horace; indeed her sudden passion had already died away at the sight of his face, at the sound of the kind voice which she had somehow begun to associate with a sense of help and protection. She did not quite give up her point even now, however.
"I need not go upstairs," she said, with trembling lips and tears in her eyes. "I may go into my own room, may I not?"
"Your room? Which is that?" asked Graham.
"This one—next to papa," she said, pointing to the door that led into the passage.
"Yes, you can stay there if you like; but don't you think you would be better with Madame Lavaux, than all by yourself in there?"
"No, I would rather stay here," she answered, and then pausing a moment at the door, "I may come and see him presently?" she added wistfully, "I always nursed him when he was ill before."
"I am sure you are a very good little nurse," said Graham kindly, "and I will tell you when you may come; but it will not be just yet. So the best thing you can do will be to go to bed, and then you will be quite ready for to-morrow."
He had no time to say more, for his services were required. He gave Madelon a candle, closed the door that communicated between the two rooms, and she was left alone.
A Farewell Letter.
Madelon was left alone to feel giddy, helpless, bewildered in the reaction from strong excitement and passion. She was quite tired and worn-out, too, with her long watching and waiting; too weary to cry even, or to think over all that had happened.
She did not go to bed, however; that would have been the last thing she would have thought of doing; for, Graham's last words notwithstanding, she had a notion that in a few minutes she would be called to come and watch by her father, as she had often done in the old days at Florence; so she only put down her candle on the table, and curled herself up in a big arm-chair; and in five minutes, in spite of her resolution to keep wide awake till she should be summoned, she was sound asleep.
Low voices were consulting together in the next room, people coming in and out; the French doctor who had been sent for arriving; cautious footsteps, and soft movements about the injured man. But Madelon heard none of them, she slept soundly on, and only awoke at last to see her candle go out with a splutter, and the grey light of dawn creeping chilly into the room. She awoke with a start and shiver of cold, and sat up wondering to find herself there; then a rush of recollections came over her of last night, or her father's accident, and she jumped up quickly, straightening herself, stretching her little stiff limbs, and pushing back her tumbled hair with both hands from the sleepy eyes that were hardly fairly open even now.
Her first movement was towards the door between the two bedrooms, but she checked herself, remembering that Monsieur le Docteur had told her she must not go in there till she was called. There was another door to her room leading into the corridor, and just at that moment she heard two people stop outside of it, talking together in subdued tones.
"Then I leave the case altogether in your hands," says a strange man's voice. "I am absolutely obliged to leave Paris for B—— by the first train this morning, and cannot be back till to-morrow night; so, as you say, Monsieur, you are in Paris for some time——"
"For the next few days, at any rate," answered the other; and Madelon recognized Graham's voice and English accent, "long enough to see this case through to the end, I am afraid."
"If anything can be done, you will do it, I am sure," interrupted the other with warmth. "You must permit me to say, Monsieur, as an old man may say to a youngconfrère, that it is seldom one meets with so much coolness and skill in such a very critical case. Nothing else could have saved——"
The voices died away as the speakers walked towards the end of the passage. Madelon had hardly taken in the sense of the few sentences she had heard; she was only anxious now to see Graham and ask if she might go to her father, so she opened her door softly and crept into the passage, meeting Horace as he returned towards the sick-room after seeing the French doctor off. He looked down on the little figure all pale and ruffled in the cold grey light.
"Why, I thought you were asleep," he said. "Would you like to see your father now? You may come in, but you must be very quiet, for he is dozing."
"Then he is better?" said Madelon, anxiously.
Graham did not answer, he opened the door and led her in. The room looked cheerless with the shaded night-lamp casting long shadows, which mingles with those that the growing daylight was chasing away. M. Linders was lying with his head supported on a heap of pillows: his forehead was bandaged where the deep cut had been given just above the brow, and he looked deadly pale; his eyes were closed, he was breathing heavily, and Madelon thought that, as Graham had told her, he was asleep; but it was, in fact, rather a kind of stupor, from which louder noises than the sound of her soft footfall would have failed to rouse him. She went on tiptoe up to his bedside, and stood gazing at him for a moment, and then with a swift, silent movement buried her face in her hands, and burst into an agony of crying.
"He is very ill—oh! is he going to die?" was all the answer she could give in a hoarse whisper to Graham's attempts at comfort, trying the while to smother her sobs, so that they might not break out and wake her father.
"I hope not—I hope not," said Horace, quite grieved at the sight of her distress; "but you must not cry so, Madelon; how are you to nurse him and help him to get well again if you do?"
She stopped sobbing a little at this, and tried to check her tears.
"Do you really think he will get well again?" she said; "he looks so ill."
Graham did not at once answer. In truth, he saw no prospect of M. Linders' ultimate recovery, though he would probably regain consciousness, and might, perhaps, linger on for a few days. But there always remained the hope born of a determination not to despair, and it seemed cruel, at that moment, not to share it with our poor little Madelon.
"We must hope so," he said at last, "we must always hope for the best, you know; but he must be kept very quiet, so you and I, Madelon, must do our best to watch him, and see that he is not disturbed."
"Yes," said Madelon, drying her eyes quite now. "I will take care of him."
"Very well, then, if you will sit with him now, I will go and speak to Madame Lavaux, if she is up; there are several arrangements I have to make."
He went away, leaving Madelon contented for the moment, since she could sit and watch by her father; she remained motionless, her eyes fixed on his face, her hands clasped round her knees, her whole mind so absorbed in keeping perfectly quiet, the one thing she could do for him just then, that she hardly ventured to breathe. But not even yet did she understand the full meaning of what had happened, nor clearly comprehend all that she had to dread. She was not really afraid that her father would not recover; she knew indeed that he was very ill, much worse than he had ever been at Florence, and that it might be a long, long time before he would be well again, but she did not think that he was going to die. She had asked the question indeed, prompted by an instinctive terror that had seized her, but in fact she hardly knew what death meant, much less had she ever conceived of her father as dead, or imagined life without him. Nevertheless, the sudden panic had left a nameless, unrecognized fear lurking somewhere, which gave an added intensity to her desire that he would wake up and speak to her once more; and sometimes the beating of her own heart seemed to deafen her, so that she could not hear the sound of his heavy irregular breathing, and then nothing but the dread of disturbing him could have prevented her from jumping up and going to him to make sure that he was still sleeping. When would he awaken and look at her and speak to her again? It appeared so long since she had heard his voice, and seen him smile at her; since he had wished her good-bye the evening before, she seemed to have lived through such long hours of unimagined terror and sorrow, and all without being able to turn to him for the sure help, for the loving protection and sympathy that had ever been ready for his little Madelon; and even now, he did not know how she was watching him, nor how she was longing to go to him and kiss him, to put her arms round his neck, and lay her soft little cheek caressingly against his. This thought was the most grievous of all to Madelon just then, and the big tears came into her eyes again, and fell slowly one by one into her lap.
Graham, however, returning presently, somehow seemed to bring courage and consolation with him. Madelon brightened up at once when he sat down by her and told her that he had asked Madame Lavaux to send them up some coffee, so that they might have it together there; and then, seeing the tears on her sad little face, he assured her in his kind way that her father would wake up presently and speak to her, and that, in the meantime, she need not sit quite so still, as she would not disturb him if she moved about quietly; and when, by-and-by, thecafé-au-laitarrived, they had their little meal together, whilst he told her in a low voice how her father had partially recovered his consciousness in the night and asked for her, but had been quite satisfied when he heard she had gone to bed, and had afterwards gone off to sleep as Madelon saw him now.
"By-the-by, Madelon," Graham said presently, "tell me if you have any relations living in Paris, or any friends that you go and visit sometimes?"
"No," says Madelon wondering, "I have no relations—only papa."
"No uncles, or aunts, or cousins?"
"No," said Madelon again, "only Uncle Charles, who died, you know."
"Ah, yes—that was an English uncle; but your papa, has he no brothers or sisters in Paris, or anywhere else?"
"I never heard of any," said Madelon, to whom this idea of possible relations seemed quite a new one. "I never go to visit anyone."
"Then you have no friends living in Paris—no little companions, no ladies who come to see you?"
"No," answers Madelon, shaking her head, "we don't know anyone in Paris, except some gentlemen who come to play with papa— like Monsieur Legros, you know—only some are nicer than he is; but I don't know the names of them all. At Wiesbaden I knew a Russian princess, who used to ask me to go and see her at the hotel—oh, yes, and a German Countess, and a great many people that we met at the tables and at the balls, but I daresay I shall never see them again; we meet so many people, you know."
"And you have no other friends?"
"Oh, yes," said Madelon, her eyes shining suddenly, "there was the American artist, who lived in our house in Florence, and the old German who taught me to sing and play the violin; I was very fond of him, he was so good—so good."
"Who were they?" asked Graham.
Madelon explained, not in the least understanding the purport of all these questions, but her explanation did not help Graham much. In truth, he was revolving some anxious thoughts. In accepting the charge of this sick man, he felt that he had incurred a certain responsibility, not only towards M. Linders, but towards his little girl, and any relations or friends that he might have. It was on Madelon's account above all that he felt uneasy; what was to become of her if her father died—and Graham had little doubt that he was dying—all friendless and alone in the world as she would apparently be? Had any arrangements for the future been made, any provision left for her? What was to become of this poor child, clinging so closely to her father, and so dependent upon him that she seemed to have no thoughts nor ideas apart from him?
Graham had been questioning Madame Lavaux as to what she knew of M. Linders and his life, and had gained much information on some points, though very little on others. Madame Lavaux had readily related the history of Madelon's birth and Madame Linders' death. It was a story she was fond of telling; it had been a little romance in the ordinary routine of hotel life, and one in which, when she had duly set forth M. Linders' heartlessness and her own exertions, she felt that she must shine in an exceptionally favourable light; and indeed it was so pitiful a tale the her hearers could not but share the indignation and compassion she felt and expressed when she spoke ofcette pauvre dame, who so young and so beautiful had been left alone to give birth to her infant, and, still alone, to die four months later. But when Graham endeavoured to get any facts bearing directly upon the present emergency, he found Madame Lavaux less well-informed. M. Linders had come to her hotel year after year, she said, and she had always taken him in, on the little girl's account (who was achère petite, though troublesome sometimes, as children would be); otherwise she would have been sorry to have such amauvais sujetabout the house, in and out at all hours, and queer-looking men sitting up with him half the night. Had he any relations or friends? That she did not know, she had never seen or heard of any, but she did not wonder at that—they did well to keep clear of him, a bad man, who had broken more hearts than his wife's, she would answer for it. For the rest, she knew little about him, she added, with a sudden fit of professional reticence, induced by the recollection that it might be as well not to gossip too much about the affairs of herclientèle;he came and went, paid his bill regularly enough, generally seemed to have money at his command, and of course it was not for her to inquire how he got it, though she might have her suspicions. What was to become of his little girl in case of his death? Madame had never thought of that: did Monsieur think he was going to die? In that case how much better to have taken him to the hospital; a death in the house was always so inconvenient and disagreeable—not that she had grudged it to thatpauvreMadame Linders, but this was a different thing altogether; would he certainly die? Monsieur said he did not know, one must always hope, but the case was a grave one, and seeing that Madame could give him no help he left her.
He had questioned Madeleine in the hope that she would be able to tell him of some one for whom he could send, or to whom he could at least write, but here again he was baffled, and he could only wait now for the moment when M. Linders should recover consciousness.
The hotel was all astir by this time with life and movement, doors opening and shutting, footsteps up and down the staircases and corridors, voices talking, calling, grumbling, downstairs eating and drinking going on with much clattering of plates and dishes, fiacres and omnibuses driving up, tourists setting off in gay parties for their day's sight- seeing, luggage being moved, travellers coming, travellers going, to England, to the north, to the south, to the ends of the earth—all the busy restless hotel life going on except in this one silent room, where two people sat very quietly watching a third, who, as one of them foresaw sadly enough, would never take part in all this stir and bustle of life again. Outside was broad sunny daylight now, but within it was all dim and cool, for the night had been hot, and the window stood wide open, and now the morning air blew freshly through the Venetian shutters, that were closed to darken the room and shut out the sun, which later would shine full upon them. The morning hours slipped away; there was nothing to be done while M. Linders remained in this state, and Madelon, by Horace's advice, took a book, and seated herself on a low stool by the window to read. Now and then she would stand looking at her father with a most pitiful yearning in her great brown eyes; once or twice, M. Linders, in his dull slumber, half torpor, half sleep, seemed in some sort conscious of her presence; he moved his head uneasily, said "Madeleine," and then some low muttered words which she could not catch, but he never quite roused up, and after each throb of expectation and hope, she could only return to her book, and her silent watching.
Graham went in and out, or sat reading and writing at the table, and at twelve o'clock he made Madelon go downstairs to breakfast with Madame Lavaux in her own little sitting-room. Madame, who was really very fond of her, had forgotten all about the altercation of the night before. Indeed she was both good-natured and kind-hearted as soon as she could allow her better impulses to have their own way; but she was a little apt, as are most people to whom life resolves itself into a narrow ministering to their personal pains and pleasures, to look upon untoward occurrences as evidence of the causeless animosity of some vague impersonality, continually on the watch to adjust the largest events of life so as to occasion her particular inconvenience. If half Paris and its environs had been destroyed by an earthquake, her first impression of the catastrophe would very possibly have been that it could not have happened at a worse moment for raising the price of early asparagus, though the further reflection that the general want of accommodation would justify her in doubling her hotel tariff, might in some measure have restored her faith in the fitness of things. After this, she would have found time to be overwhelmed with compassion for the sufferers. M. Linders' accident, she found, had, as yet, been attended with no evil results, so far as she was concerned; no one had been disturbed in the night, no one had left, so that, for the moment, it had been safely transferred to that region of abstract facts, which she could consider dispassionately, and judge by the light of her kindly impulses; and it was under the influence of these that she was now bent on petting and making much of Madelon, giving her cakes and confitures and all kinds of good things. On second thoughts she had rejected the idea that M. Linders was going to die; it would be so very troublesome and inconvenient, that she found it pleasanter to persuade herself that he would surely recover; and now, on the strength of his conviction, and with a kind wish to console Madelon, she became so encouraging, so certain he would be well again in a few weeks—in a few weeks did she say?—in a few days—with this clever English doctor, who, as she improvised for the occasion, everyone knew was one of the first doctors in London—with all this Madame so encouraged and cheered our Madelon, that she came upstairs again at the end of an hour looking quite bright, and almost expecting to see some wonderful change for the better in her father. M. Linders, however still lay as she had left him, and perhaps the sight of his pale bloodless face chilled her, for she crept silently to her corner, and took up her book again, without saying a word of her new hopes. Presently Graham, looking up from his writing, found that she had done the best thing possible under the circumstances, for, with her book lying open upon her lap, and her head resting against the window-frame, she had fallen fast asleep. He went up to her, raised her gently in his arms, and carried her into her own room; so perfectly sound asleep was she, that she hardly stirred, even when he laid her on her bed; and then, drawing the curtain round her, he left her to herself.