g."

Bertha lost no time in obeying, and was soon sitting by Madeleine's
side, receiving rather than giving comfort.

Dr. Bayard, whose visits were necessarily brief, was compelled to leave,
but he did so with the assurance that he would return speedily.

Count Tristan's eyes wandered about as though in search of some one;
they rested but for one instant upon his mother, Maurice, Mrs. Lawkins,
and then glanced around him again with an anxious, yearning expression,
and he moaned faintly.

Maurice bent over him. "My dear father, is there anything you desire?"

The count moaned again.

"Is there any one you wish to see?" asked Maurice, determined to take a
bold stand.

"Mad--Mad--Madeleine!"

The feeble lips of the sufferer formed the word with difficulty, yet it
was clearly spoken.

Maurice turned bravely to the countess. "You hear, my grandmother, that
my father wishes to see Madeleine; it is not usual to refuse the
requests of one in his perilous condition. With your permission I shall
at once seek Madeleine and bring her to him."

"Have you taken leave of your senses?" she asked with tyrannous passion.
"Or do you think that I have not borne insults enough, that you strive
to invent new ones to heap upon me? How can you mention the name of that
miserable girl in my hearing? Has she not occasioned me and all my
family sufficient wretchedness? Are you mad enough to imagine that I
will allow you to bring her here that she may triumph over me in the
face of the whole world?"

"My father asks to see her," returned Maurice, adding, in a lower tone,
"and he may be on his death-bed."

Madame de Gramont, losing all control over herself, replied savagely,
"_If_ he were stretched there a corpse before me,--_he_, _my only son_,
the only child I ever bore, the pride of my life,--Madeleine de Gramont
should not enter these doors to glory over me! I know her arts; I know
the hold she has contrived to obtain over him while he was at her mercy.
That is at an end! I have him here, and she shall never come near him
more,--neither she nor her _accomplices_!" and she indicated Mrs.
Lawkins by a disdainful motion of the hand, as though she feared her
meaning might not be sufficiently clear.

Maurice could not yield without another effort; for he perceived, by his
father's countenance, that he not only heard the contest, but appealed
to him to grant his unspoken wish.

"This is cruel, my grandmother! It is inhuman! You have