From the very beginning of
their acquaintance, it had occurred to Madelon that she might
be able to gain some information on that subject, which her
father had pronounced to be above her comprehension as yet;
but which, on reflection, and encouraged by a Nanette's
example, she felt quite sure she could understand if it were
only explained to her. Twenty times had that still unanswered
question trembled on her lips, but a shy timidity, not so much
of her old friend as of the subject itself, which had become
invested in her mind with a kind of awful mystery, to which a
hundred circumstances daily contributed, checked her at the
moment of utterance.
One evening, however, she was sitting as usual at the window
in the old man's room. The sun had set, the short twilight was
drawing to a close, church bells were ringing, down in the
city yellow lights were gleaming in windows here and there,
above, the great sky rounded upward from a faint glow on the
horizon through imperceptible gradations of tint, to pure
depths of transparent blue overhead, where stars were
beginning to flash and tremble; within, in the gloom, the
musician sat playing a sacred melody of Spohr's, and as
Madelon listened, some subtle affinity between this hour and
the first one she had spent in the church touched her, and her
eyes filled with sudden tears of painful ecstasy.
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