med
suspicions--how happy they must be, Monsieur Horace, who loves
Maria, Maria who is loved by Monsieur Horace, whilst she--why,
it is she who loves Monsieur Horace, who has loved him since
he rescued her, a little child, from loneliness and despair--
she, who for all these years has had but one thought, Monsieur
Horace, one object, Monsieur Horace, and who sees herself now
shut out from such a bright, gleaming paradise, into such
shivering outer darkness. Ah, she loved him--she loved him--she
owned it to herself now, with a sudden burst of passion--and he
was going away; he had no thought of her; his path in life lay
along one road, and hers along another--a road how blank, how
dreary, wrapped in what grey, unswerving mists.

"Ah, why must I live? Oh! that I could die--if I could only
die!" cries the poor child passionately in her thoughts,
stretching out her hands in her young impatience of life and
suffering. "I love him--is it wrong? How can I help it? I loved
him before I knew what it meant, I never knew till----"

She stopped suddenly, with a blush that seemed to set her
cheeks all a-flame--she had never known till half-an-hour ago,
when she had looked up and met his eyes for that one moment.
Ah! why had he looked at her so? And she--oh, merciful heavens!
had she betrayed herself? At the very thought Madelon started
as if she had been stung. She turned from the window, she
covered her face with her hands, and escaping swiftly, she
fled to her own room, and throwing herself on the bed, buried
her face in the pillow, to wrestle through her poor little
tragedy of love, and self-consciousness, and despair.

And while Madelon is crying her heart out upstairs, this is
what has been going on below. There had been an uncomfortable
pause in the sitting-room after her swift retreat; Mrs.
Vavasour neither moved nor spoke, Maria knitted diligently,
and Graham stood gloomily staring down on the music-stool
where Madelon had sat and sung, and looked up at him with that
sudden gleam in her eyes, till, rousing himself, he walked
through the open window, into the garden, across the lawn, to
the shrubbery. He stood leaning over the little gate at the
end of the path, looking over the broad moonlit field, where
the scattered bushes cast strange fantastic shadows, and for
the first time he admitted to himself that he had made a
great, a terrible mistake in life, and he hated himself for
the admission. What indeed were faith,