s discovered
Madeleine: _that_ is all I ask for the present. You may be right about
her refusing to return here,--I dare say you are; but _that_ will not
make me miserable, which I should be if we could not find her at all. I
mean to ask my uncle's permission to allow Madeleine to reside with us.
I do not see how he can refuse, and he is very indulgent; so that,
whether Madeleine consents to return here, or not, we shall not be
wholly parted."

Bertha did not suspect into what a fury her words were lashing the
count, nor did she divine the machinations already at work within his
perfidious spirit to defeat her kindly purpose.

CHAPTER X.

THE HUMBLE COMPANION.

Rapidly as Maurice travelled from Edinburgh to London, the distance
seemed interminable to his impetuous spirit. Multitudes of arguments
were driven through his mind in long array, and he was impatient to
prove their power in persuading Madeleine to return. Was it possible
that she could refuse to see their force? If calm reasoning, if
entreaties and prayers failed to move her, he would test the potency of
a threat,--she should learn that he had vowed never to return to his
paternal home, never to forgive those who had driven her forth by their
cruelty, until _she_ had proclaimed their pardon by again taking up her
abode at the Chateau de Gramont. Madeleine, who shrank from all strife,
who moved in an atmosphere of harmony, which seemed to envelop her
wherever she went, would not lift her hand to sever the sacred bond of
union between father and son, grandmother and grandchild. Whatever
anguish it might cost her to yield, however great her sacrifice, she
would endure the one and accept the other rather than become the
instrument that, with fatal blow, struck such an unholy severance.

Maurice vividly pictured to himself his approaching interview under a
tantalizing variety of circumstances. Now he imagined that he saw
Madeleine only in the presence of her new friends,--that she was cold
and reserved, and allowed him no opportunity of uttering a word that
could reach _her_ ear alone. Now he fancied she had granted him a
private interview,--that she was sitting by his side, but resolute,
unconvinced, unmoved, while he besieged her with arguments, appealed to
her with all the passionate fervor that convulsed his soul, portrayed in
darkest colors the fearful results of her inflexibility. Now he painted
her overwhelmed by his reasoning, melted by his app