ing
salon, and had joined one of the silent groups standing round
the tables.

Meanwhile, Madelon, once more absorbed in the game, is
meditating her grand _coup_. Hitherto she has been playing
cautiously, her capital accumulating gradually, but surely,
till she has quite a heap of gold and notes before her. It is
already a fortune in her eyes, and she thinks, if she could
only double this all at once, then indeed would the great task
be accomplished; she might go then, she might write to
Monsieur Horace, she would see him again--ah! what joy, what
happiness! Should she venture? Surely it would be very rash to
risk all that at once--and yet if she were to win--and she has
been so lucky this evening-- her heart leaps up again--she
hesitates a moment, then pushes the whole on to the black,
reserving only one ten-franc piece, and sits pale, breathless,
incapable of moving, during what seemed to her the longest
minute in her life. It was only a minute--the croupier dealt
the cards--"_Rouge perd, et couleur_," he cried, paid the smaller
stakes, and then, counting out gold and notes, pushed over to
her what was, in fact, a sufficiently large sum, and which, to
her inexperienced eyes, seemed enormous. "Who is she?" asked
one or two of the bystanders of each other. "She has been
winning all the evening." They shrugged their shoulders;
nobody knew. As for Madelon, she heard none of their remarks--
she had won, she might go now, go and find Monsieur Horace;
and as this thought crossed her mind, she gathered up her
winnings, thrust them into her bag, and rose to depart. As she
turned round, she faced Monsieur Horace himself, who had been
standing behind her chair, little dreaming whose play it was
he had been watching.

She recognised him in a moment, though he had grown thinner
and browner since she had last seen him. "Monsieur Horace!--
Monsieur Horace!" she cried.

He was still watching the game, but turned at the sound of her
voice, and looked down on the excited little face before him.
"Madelon!" he exclaimed--"Madelon here!--no, impossible!
Madelon!"

"Yes, yes," she said, half laughing, half crying at the same
time, "I am Madelon. Ah! come this way--let me show you. I have
something to show you this time--you will see, you will see!"

She seized both his hands as she spoke, and pulled him through
the crowd into the adjoining reading-room. It was all lighted
up, the table strewn with books and papers; but no one wa