"
As for M. Linders, the thought of the little, eager innocent
face that would greet his return home was the brightest and
purest vision that lighted his dark and wayward life, and he
appealed to his child's sympathy and encouragement in a way
that had something touching in it, showing as it did the
gentler side of a man who was always reckless, and could be
hard and merciless enough sometimes; but he was never anything
but tender with his little Madelon, and one can fancy the two
sitting together, as she counts over the little gold pieces
shining in the candlelight. Once, not long after his marriage,
he had appealed to his wife in the same way, when, after an
unusual run of luck, he had returned in triumph with his
winnings. She, poor girl, looked first at them and then at
him, with a piteous little attempt at a smile; then suddenly
burst into tears, and turned away. It was the first and last
time he tried to win her sympathy in these matters, and was,
perhaps, the beginning of the sort of estrangement that grew
up between them.
These were happy evenings, Madelon thought, but she found
those happier still when her father was at home, generally
with one or two men who would come in to play cards with him.
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