ooked forward, for
which she had worked, and striven, and ventured all? She knelt
down by the bed, flinging her arms out over the coarse blue
counterpane. Ah, if she had but died there, died while she was
all unconscious, before this cruel grief and disappointment
had come upon her!

And meanwhile, Jeanne-Marie, in the room below, had been
hardening her heart against the child after her own fashion.
She had answered Mrs. Treherne's questions curtly, rejected
the faintest suggestion of money as an insult, and stood
eyeing Graham defiantly while the talk went on. "Madelon has
grand new friends now," she was thinking all the time very
likely, "and will go away and be happy, and forget all about
me; well, let her go--what does it matter?" And then presently,
going upstairs to look for this happy, triumphant Madelon, she
found her crouching on the floor, trying to stifle the sound
of her despairing sobs.

"Oh, Jeanne-Marie, Jeanne-Marie!" she cried, as soon as she
could speak, "I wish I might stay with you, I wish I had never
gone away; what was the use of it all? I thought I was going
to be so happy, and now I am to go to England, and Monsieur
Horace is to go to America, and I shall never, never, be happy
again!"

"What was the use of what?" says Jeanne-Marie, taking the
child into her kind arms; "why will you never be happy again?
Are they unkind to you? Is that gentleman downstairs Monsieur
Horace that you used to talk about?"

"Yes, that is Monsieur Horace. Ah, no, he is not unkind, he is
kinder than any one--you do not understand, Jeanne-Marie, and I
cannot tell you, but I am very unhappy." She put her arms
round the woman's neck, and hid her face on her shoulder. In
truth, Jeanne-Marie did not understand what all this terrible
grief and despair were about. Madelon, as we know, had never
confided her hopes, and plans, and wishes to her; but she knew
that the child whom she loved better than all the world was in
trouble, and that she must send her away without being able to
say a word to comfort her, and that seemed hard to bear.

So they sat silent for awhile; and then Jeanne-Marie got up.

"You must go, _ma petite_," she said; "Madame is waiting, and I
came to fetch you." She walked to the door, and then turned
round suddenly. "_Ecoutez, mon enfant_," she said, placing her
two hands on Madelon's shoulders, and looking down into her
face, "you will not forget me? I--I should not like to think
you will go awa