im, beyond
the woods, as far as she could see, in the vain hope of there
discovering some means of escape.

VIII.

In descending one evening the broad stair of the Gewandhaus, and
forced, by reason of the crowd, to pause on every step, Madeleine
overheard the talk of two men behind her, one of whom, it seemed, had
all the gossip of the place at his fingertips. From what she caught up
greedily, as soon as Maurice's name was mentioned, she learnt a
surprising piece of news. "A cat and dog life," was the phrase used by
the speaker. As she afterwards picked her way through snow and slush,
Madeleine confessed to herself that it was impossible to feel regret at
what she had heard. Perhaps, after all, things would come right of
themselves. In order to recover from his infatuation, to learn what
Louise really was, it had only been necessary for Maurice to be
constantly at her side.--Was it not Goethe who said that the way to
cure a bad habit was to indulge it?

But a few days afterwards, her satisfaction was damped. Late one
afternoon she had entered Seyffert's Cafe, to drink a cup of chocolate.
At a table parallel with the one she chose, two fellow-students were
playing draughts. Madeleine had only been there for a few minutes, when
their talk, which went on unrestrainedly between the moves of the game,
leapt, with a witticism, to the unlucky pair in whom she was
interested. To her astonishment, she now heard Louise's name, coupled
with that of another man.

"Well, I never!" said the second of the two behind her. "I say it's
your move.--That's rough on Guest, isn't it?"

Madeleine turned in her chair and faced the man who had spoken.

"Excuse me, who is Herries?" she asked without ceremony.

In her own room that evening, she pondered long. It was one thing for
the two to drift naturally apart; another for Maurice to see himself
superseded. If this were true, jealousy, and nothing else, would be at
the root of their disunion. Madeleine felt very unwilling to mix
herself up in the affair: it would be like plunging two clean hands
into dirty water. But then, you never could tell how a man would act in
a case like this: the odds were ten to one he did something foolish.

And so she wrote to Maurice, making her summons imperative. This
failing, she tried to waylay him going to or from his classes; but the
only satisfaction she gained, was the knowledge of his irregularity:
during the week she waited she did not on