No, getting out of the
convent was not the difficulty. It would be easier, certainly,
if one could walk out at the front door; but this being a
possibility not to be calculated upon, two walls should not
stand in the way. The real problem, of which even Madelon's
sanguine mind saw no present solution, was how to get on
without money, or rather how to procure any. She had none, not
even a centime, and she was well aware that her fortune could
in no wise be procured without some small invested capital:
and besides, how was she to get to Spa at all without money?
Could she walk there? Her ideas of the actual distance were
too vague for her to make such a plan with any certainty; and
besides, the chances of her discovery and capture by the nuns
(chances too horribly unpleasing, and involving too many
unknown consequences for Madelon to contemplate them with
anything but a shudder), would be multiplied indefinitely by
so slow a method of proceeding. Certainly this question of
money was a serious one, and it was this that Madelon was
revolving, as she sat gazing at the golden sunset sky, when
she was startled by a sudden rumbling and tumbling in the
corridor; in another moment the door was burst open, and Soeur
Lucie and another sister appeared, dragging between them a
corded trunk, of the most secular appearance, which had
apparently seen many places, for it was pasted all over with
half-effaced addresses and illustrated hotel advertisements.
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