s remonstrating with his father, and
trying to lead him on, but that the count would not move, and still
cried out, "Come! come!" in a voice of piteous entreaty.

Curious strangers began to collect; Madeleine knew that if the scene
continued even a few moments, a crowd would gather, and all manner of
inquiries be made of her coachman, the hotel-keepers, the servants. She
leaped out of the carriage, hastened to the count's side, and said,--

"I will go upstairs with you; the assistance of Maurice may not be
sufficient; lean on my arm also."

And Count Tristan did lean upon her, for his limbs were too feeble to
ascend a long flight without difficulty.

The door of the countess's _salon_ was but a few paces from the top of
the stair. Madeleine paused, took the count's hand affectionately in
hers, and pressed it several times to her lips, saying,--

"Now I must bid you adieu. It would not be agreeable to the countess to
see me. She would think my coming with you impertinent. You will not
force me to bear the pain of seeing her displeasure? Bid me adieu and
let me go!"

The count, easily swayed by her persuasive voice, and inspired with a
vague dread of his mother's anger, kissed her forehead, and did not
remonstrate, but stood still and watched her gliding swiftly down the
stairs.

Maurice had whispered to her, "I will be with you as soon as possible,
Madeleine. Be brave, for my sake!"

The countess had only betrayed her anxious expectancy by changing her
usual seat to one where she could watch the door, and by looking up
eagerly every time it opened. When, at last, Maurice entered, supporting
Count Tristan, there was a gleam of mingled joy and triumph in his
mother's eye. It was doubtful whether the triumph of having compelled
obedience to her commands, and of having wrested her son from Madeleine,
did not surpass the joy she experienced in beholding that son once
again.

From her greeting, a stranger would hardly have imagined that when she
saw him last his life was in imminent peril, and that she had rushed
from his presence overcome by grief and mortification. She now received
him as though she had cheated herself into the belief that she was doing
the honors in her ancestral chateau, and that his brief absence had no
graver origin than some ordinary pleasure party.

"Welcome, my son, welcome!" said she, kissing him on either cheek. "We
have missed you greatly; you are thrice welcome for this brief
separati