Ah! what, indeed, was she to
do, with a programme so rudely disarranged, with all her
little plans and projects so shattered to fragments, that to
restore them to anything like their former shape seemed
hopeless? Madelon could think of nothing better to do than to
go back to the hotel from which she had come. She had left all
her small possessions there, and perhaps Madame Bertrand would
have come in, and would be able to help her. In all the world
our despairing Madelon could turn her thoughts nowhere at this
crisis but to the good, unconscious Madame Bertrand, the one
friend to whom she could apply, and who might perhaps be
willing to assist her.
It seemed a long time before she found herself at the hotel
again, and yet, in fact, it was scarcely more than half an
hour since she had left it. Through the open door to the left
she might have seen the waiter still busy over his plates and
glasses, while the gentleman who had been breakfasting had
only just finished his newspaper. But Madelon never thought of
them, nor looked in that direction, indeed; with dazed eyes
she was making her way along the semi-darkness of the passage
to the parlour at the end, when she ran right up against some
one who was coming towards her--a stout old lady, with grey
hair, and a little grey moustache, a very gay shawl, and a
large bonnet, with primrose-coloured ribbons.
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