In capturing
our little stray Madelon, and taking her back to the convent,
she felt she was doing a deed that would afford her matter for
self-congratulation for days to come; and she was gracious and
affable accordingly, speaking to Madelon in a tone of
condescending good-nature, which was quite lost upon the
child, who was beyond caring for kindness or unkindness just
then. She was only conscious of some terrible burden, which
she could not define nor reason upon, but which seemed to
oppress and weigh her down, making her incapable of thought,
or speech, or motion. When they got into the railway-carriage
she could only lean back in the corner, with a general sense
that something dreadful had happened, or was going to happen;
but that her head ached too much, and felt too confused, for
her to remember what it was all about.
They changed carriages at Pepinster, and, still in the same
dream of misery, Madelon followed the Countess from one train
to another. They set off again, but presently, as the
slackening speed showed that they were approaching another
station, she suddenly woke up to the keenest perception of her
situation, with a quickening of her numbed senses to the most
vivid realization of all she had lost, of all she might have
to endure.
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