talk of any one else?"

"Of plenty of people," replied Jeanne-Marie. "Soeur Lucie, and
Soeur Francoise, and numbers of others."

"Ah! yes; but I don't mean in the convent!--any one out of the
convent, I mean? Did I talk of--Monsieur Horace?"

"Sometimes," said Jeanne-Marie, counting her stitches
composedly.

"What did I say about him?" asked Madelon, anxiously. "Please
will you tell me? I can't remember, you know."

Jeanne-Marie looked at her for a moment, and then said, rather
bluntly,--

"Nothing that anybody could understand. You called to him, and
then you told him not to come; that was all, and not common
sense either."

"Ah, that is all right," said Madelon, satisfied; her secret
at least was safe, and never, never, should it be revealed
till she had accomplished her task. As she once more mentally
recorded this little vow, she looked at Jeanne-Marie, who was
still sitting by her bedside knitting.

"Jeanne-Marie," she said in her tired, feeble little voice,
and putting out one of her small thin hands, "you are very,
very good to me; I can't think how any one can be so kind as
you are; I shall love you all my life. What would have become
of me if you had not found me and taken such care of me?"

"What will become of you if you don't leave off talking, and
do as the doctor bids you?" said Jeanne-Marie, stopping her
little speech; "he said you were to be quite quiet, and here
have you been chattering this half-hour; now I am going to get
your dinner."

As she became stronger, Madelon would sometimes have long
conversations with Jeanne-Marie--in which she would tell her
much about her past life, of her father, of how happy she had
been as a little child, of how miserable she had been in the
convent, and of how she had hated the life there. But more
often she would lie still for hours, almost perfectly silent,
thinking, brooding over something--Jeanne-Marie would wonder
what. Madelon never told her; she had begun to love and cling
to the woman, almost the only friend she had in the world, but
not even in her would she confide; she had made the resolution
to tell no one of her plans and hopes, to trust no one, lest
her purpose should in any way be frustrated; and she kept to
it, though at the cost of some pain and trouble, so natural is
it to seek for help and sympathy.

Madelon's fixed idea had returned to her with redoubled force
since her illness. Her one failure had only added intensity to
her pu