a thick, persistent drizzle, through which
everything looked dim and blurred, and which was almost as
dense as the low-hanging mists that hid the tops of the hills.
Madelon stood still and shivered for a minute, clutching her
little bundle under her cloak, and trying to collect her
ideas.

Not a hundred yards off was the village, lying between the
hills in the next valley to Chaudfontaine, and not more than
three miles from that place, but shut out from it by a barrier
of rocky, wooded hill, round which there was only just space
for the road and stream to wind; an amphibious little village,
half in and half out of the water apparently, for it stood
just where the stream spread out in wide shallows, round low
islands, on and amongst which the houses were clustered and
scattered. Madelon instinctively turned towards it; she had
the very vaguest idea in her poor, bewildered little brain as
to where she was, or what she was going to do, only one thing
obvious in the surrounding uncertainties--that she could not
remain standing on the platform in the pouring rain. She gave
up her ticket mechanically, passed through the gate, and
followed the muddy road leading to the cottages. She was very
tired, she had never felt quite so tired before, and her knees
trembled as they had done that day when the fever came on at
the convent; she was so dizzy too, that she had to stop now
and then, to grasp the one fact of her being where she was and
not somewhere else altogether; her single idea was to go on
walking until--until when? That was a question she could not
have answered, only somewhere she must go, where she would be
out of the way of countess or nuns, or any other enemy who
might be lying in wait to pounce upon her. This was all she
thought about as she passed along the village street, which
was dull and deserted-looking enough on this wet, grey
afternoon, till the sight of a church with an open door,
suggested something quite different, and which was a positive
relief after that nightmare motion of walking perpetually with
failing limbs, and a sense of pursuit behind. She would go in
there, and sit down and rest for a little while. By-and-by,
when the giddiness and trembling had gone off, she would be
better able to think of what she should do; she would be out
of the rain, too, there--the cold rain, which had already
drenched her cloak and skirt.

She went in; it was a village church of the simplest
description, very sm