t
only years and distance that had estranged them, or had they
been unsuited to each other from the beginning? Not even now
would Graham acknowledge to himself that it was so, but it was
a conviction he had been struggling against for years.

"Will you take some tea, Monsieur Horace?" said a voice behind
him. He turned round. The grey daylight was fading into grey
dusk, afternoon tea had been brought in, and Madelon was
standing by him with a cup in her hand. "Aunt Barbara has gone
out, and will not be home till dinner-time," she added, as she
returned to the tea-table and fireside.

"Then you and I will drink tea together, Madelon," said
Graham, seating himself in an arm-chair opposite to her.
"Where have you been all this afternoon? Have you been out
too?"

"I have been to a singing-class. I generally go twice a-week
when we are in town."

"And do you like it?"

"Yes, I like it very much."

So much they said, and then a silence ensued. Madelon drank
her tea, and Graham sat looking at her. Yes, a change had
certainly come over her--this Madelon, who came and went so
quietly, with a certain harmonious grace in every movement--
this Madelon, who sometimes smiled, but rarely laughed, who
spoke little, and then with an air of vague weariness and
indifference--this was not the little impetuous, warm-hearted
Madelon he remembered, who had clung to him in her childish
sorrow, who had turned from him in her childish anger, who in
her very wilfulness, in her very abandonment to the passion of
the moment, had been so winning and loveable. It was not
merely that she was not gay--gaiety was an idea that he had
never associated with Madelon; it had always been a sad little
face that had come before him when he had thought of her; but
in all her sadness, there had been an animation and spring, an
eagerness and effusion in the child, that seemed wholly
wanting in the girl. It was as if a subtle shadow had crept
over her, toning down every characteristic light to its own
grey monotonous tint.

Madelon had not the smallest suspicion of what was passing in
her companion's mind. During all these years, in whatever
other respects she might have altered, the attitude of her
heart towards him had never changed. What he had always been
to her, he was now; the time that had elapsed since they
parted had but intensified and deepened her old feeling
towards him--that was all. He had been in her thoughts day and
night; in a thousa