g him."

"Did you really come for my sake," asked Maurice, much moved.

Mrs. Walton answered, "How could we help being distressed about you?
Your letters were so unsatisfactory. I shall know more of your true
state in one _tete-a-tete_,--one good long heart-talk,--than I could
learn by a thousand letters."

After this declaration, Ronald and his father jestingly pronounced
themselves _de trop_ and departed.

Maurice had long since given Mrs. Walton his full confidence, and now to
sit and relate the events that had transpired during his stay in
Washington was a heart-unburthening which lightened his oppressed
spirit. It seemed to him as though some ray of hope must break through
the clouds which enveloped him, if her clear, steady vision closely
scanned their blackness; _she_ might discover some gleam of light which
he could not perceive.

When he finished the narrative she asked,--

"And have you no suspicion who this mysterious lover can be? No clue to
his identity?"

"Not the faintest," answered Maurice.

"But since you have seen Madeleine at all hours of the day, since you
have resided in her house, she could not have evinced a preference for
any gentleman without your perceiving the distinction."

"She evinced no preferences; no gentleman was upon an intimate footing
except M. de Bois, who is engaged to Bertha, much to Madeleine's
delight."

"M. de Bois, you tell me," continued Mrs. Walton, "has been her devoted
friend during all these years that she has been separated from you. Have
you not been able to learn something from him?"

"I have too much respect for Madeleine to force from another a secret
which she refuses to impart to me; but I am quite certain that if M. de
Bois knows whom Madeleine has blessed with her love, Bertha is still in
ignorance. Bertha would have told me at once."

Mrs. Walton mused awhile, then said, "I do not see any loose thread by
which the mystery can be unravelled; but you will, of course, make me
acquainted with your Madeleine?"

"_My_ Madeleine," began Maurice, bitterly.

"I called her yours involuntarily, because your heart seems so wholly to
claim her. She will receive me,--will she not?"

"Gladly, I am sure."

"Then we will go to-morrow."

There were too many chords of sympathy which vibrated responsively in
the bosoms of Mrs. Walton and Madeleine, too many planes upon which they
could meet, for them to remain merely formal acquaintances. It was
Madeleine's n