ld.

"Well, well," said Jeanne-Marie, "I do not want to hear your
secrets, as you know, unless you like to tell them; but I am
not going to lose sight of you altogether till I hear you are
safe with your friends. You must write me a letter from Spa,
and if I do not hear or see anything of you in a week's time,
I shall come and look after you."

"Yes, I will write," said Madelon; "and I wish--I wish I was
not going away; I have been so happy here." And then she hid
her face on Jeanne-Marie's shoulder, while the sky was all
rosy with the sunset of the last of these peaceful summer days
that our Madelon was to spend at Le Trooz.

Jeanne-Marie could not spare time to go again to Spa the next
day, but she went with Madelon to the station, and waited till
the train that bore her away was out of sight, and then, all
lonely, she walked back to her empty house.

CHAPTER XVI.

How Madelon kept her Promise.

Madelon was standing in a little upper bedroom of the Hotel de
Madrid, a room so high up that from the window one looked over
the tops of the trees in the Place Royale below, to the
opposite hills. It was already dusk, but there was sufficient
light to enable her to count over the little piles of gold
that lay on the table before her, and which, as she counted,
she put into a small canvas bag. It was the third evening
after her arrival in Spa; she was preparing for her third
visit to the Redoute, and this was what her capital of thirty
francs had already produced.

The last ten-franc piece disappeared within the bag, and
Madelon, taking her hat and cloak, began to put them on
slowly, pausing as she did so to reflect.

"If I have the same luck this evening," she thinks, "to-morrow
I shall be able to write to Monsieur Horace--if only I have--and
why not? I have scarcely lost once these last two nights.
Certainly it is better to play in the evening than in the
daytime. I remember now that papa once said so, and to-night I
feel certain--yes, I feel certain that I shall win--and then to-
morrow----"

She clasped her hands in ecstasy; she looked up at the evening
sky. It was a raw, grey September evening, with gusts of wind
and showers of rain at intervals. But Madelon cared nothing
for the weather; her heart was all glowing with hope, and joy,
and exultation. She put on her hat and veil, took up her
money, and locking her door after her, ran downstairs. She
hung the key up in Madame Bertrand's room, but Madame B