---"

"Bah!" was Jeanne-Marie's only answer, as she left the room.
She knew her customer too well to be in the least afraid of
his carrying his implied threat into execution. Indeed,
Jacques Monnier, who had no mind to be ousted from the
convenient little restaurant, where he got good wine and long
credit, acted upon the hints he had received, and stuck
manfully to Jeanne-Marie's version of her adventure. And so it
happened, that although for a day or two a few rumours were
afloat in the village, they soon died away; and it was
received as an established fact by those who cared to interest
themselves in Jeanne-Marie's affairs, that it was her niece
whom the doctor went to see so regularly. And so much apart
did Jeanne-Marie keep from her neighbours, that the subject
was soon half-forgotten, and Madelon's very existence seemed
problematic, as she lay in the little upstairs room, and the
woman who sheltered her, appeared to come and go about her
business much the same as usual.

As for Jeanne-Marie, as soon as the house was quiet, on the
evening of that day so eventful for our little Madelon, she
sat down and wrote two letters: one she put into a large
envelope, which she directed to a street in Paris; the other,
inclosed in the first, was addressed to the Superior of the
Convent at Liege, and the letters, with their Paris direction,
were put into the post that very night.

CHAPTER XIV.

Madelon's Convalescence.

Madelon, if she had but known it, had small reason to
apprehend any very vigorous pursuit on the part of the nuns.
There was, it is true, no small commotion in the convent, when
Soeur Lucie, entering Madelon's cell the morning after her
flight, found the empty room, the unslept-on bed. She did not
indeed realize at first that the child had run away; but when,
after inquiry and search through the whole convent, she found
that nothing had been seen or heard of her, since she herself
had quitted the cell the previous evening, then the whole
truth became apparent, and a general sense of consternation
pervaded the sisterhood. It was the enormity of the offence
that struck them aghast, the boldness of the attempt, and its
complete success. It was altogether a new idea to them that
any one should wish to escape from those walls; an appalling
one that any one should make such an attempt, and succeed.
Soeur Lucie, held responsible for Madelon, was summoned before
the Superior, questioned, cross-questioned,