francs on to the same spot. Another pause--another deal. "_Rouge
perd et la couleur!_" She had lost again, and her last chance
was gone.

Surely at the gambling-tables of Spa that day there was no
more pitiful little tragedy played out than that represented
by these two warm little gold coins, raked away by an
indifferent croupier into a great careless heap, and carrying
with them how many hopes, and ambitions, and longings--all
crushed and scattered in one brief moment. Madelon half
uttered a stifled cry, half made an involuntary movement
forward; then, recollecting herself, shrank back, disengaging
herself from the crowd. The gap was immediately filled up; no
one remarked, or cared for, the poor, despairing child. The
brave little spirit almost gave way, as Madelon, with a sudden
sick feeling of faintness and giddiness, was obliged to sit
down on the nearest sofa--but not quite even then. All was
lost--nothing now remained for her to do in those _salons_, and
she must not stay there, she knew; so in a minute she got up
again, and made her way out of the room and down the
staircase, clinging to the balustrade, blindly groping her
way, as it were, till she was once more in the street.

Here the fresh air revived her a little, and she was able to
consider what she should do next. Ah! what, indeed, was she to
do, with a programme so rudely disarranged, with all her
little plans and projects so shattered to fragments, that to
restore them to anything like their former shape seemed
hopeless? Madelon could think of nothing better to do than to
go back to the hotel from which she had come. She had left all
her small possessions there, and perhaps Madame Bertrand would
have come in, and would be able to help her. In all the world
our despairing Madelon could turn her thoughts nowhere at this
crisis but to the good, unconscious Madame Bertrand, the one
friend to whom she could apply, and who might perhaps be
willing to assist her.

It seemed a long time before she found herself at the hotel
again, and yet, in fact, it was scarcely more than half an
hour since she had left it. Through the open door to the left
she might have seen the waiter still busy over his plates and
glasses, while the gentleman who had been breakfasting had
only just finished his newspaper. But Madelon never thought of
them, nor looked in that direction, indeed; with dazed eyes
she was making her way along the semi-darkness of the passage
to the par