ng, and when Jeanne-Marie
went up to her again, she raised herself on the bed, resting
on one elbow, and fixed her large eyes upon the woman, first
with a look of blank unconsciousness, and then with a sudden
light of terror in them, as of some wild hunted thing just
caught by its pursuers.

"Don't take me back to the convent!" she cried in sharp,
piteous accents; "don't take me back; I can't go, I can't--no,
no, no!"

"No one shall take you back," said Jeanne-Marie, trying to
soothe her. But she paid no heed.

"Indeed I can't go. Ah, Madame, you said you knew papa; have
pity upon me! I promised him I would never be a nun. He died,
you know, and sent me to the convent at Liege to be with Aunt
Therese; but he made me promise before he died. I can't go
back--I should die too. Ah, Madame, have pity on me!"

She was kneeling on the bed now, her hands clasped with her
pitiful little imploring gesture. Jeanne-Marie came close to
her, and smoothed back her hair caressingly with her rough
work-a-day fingers.

"_Soyez tranquille, mon enfant_," she said, "you shall not be
taken back to the convent, and no one shall make you a nun."

"You promise?" said Madelon, catching hold of her arm, and
looking into her face with eager, suspicious eyes; "you
promise not to take me back?"

"Yes, I promise," said the woman; "fear nothing, _ma petite_."

"And you won't tell Aunt Therese that I ran away? For she
would be so angry, you know; she wanted to make me a nun like
herself; you won't tell her--you won't, you won't?"

"No, no," said Jeanne-Marie. "I will tell nothing, you are
quite safe here; now lie down and be quiet, and I will give
you something nice to drink."

But Madelon's eyes wandered; the terrified look came again,
and she clung tighter and tighter to Jeanne-Marie.

"Please ask Aunt Therese to go away!" she cried; "she is
standing there in the corner of the room, staring at me; she
will not move--there--there she is, don't you see? Oh, tell her
to go away--she stares at me so, and oh! there is a coffin at
her side, it is all over death's heads; Aunt Therese has a
death's head--oh! take me away, take me away!"

With a shriek of terror the child threw herself back on the
bed, covering her eyes with her hands, burying her face in the
pillow.

Jeanne-Marie went to the top of the stairs and called "Jacques
Monnier!"

"_Hein?_" said the man, coming slowly to the door below, and
standing with his broad figure frame