She
hung the key up in Madame Bertrand's room, but Madame Bertrand
was not there. On Madelon's arrival at the hotel she had found
the excellent old woman ill, and unable to leave her room, and
it was in her bed that she had given the child the warmest of
welcomes, and from thence that she had issued various orders
for her comfort and welfare. Her attack still kept her
confined to her room, and thus it happened that our Madelon,
quite independent, found herself at liberty to come and go
just as she pleased.
She hung up her key, in the deserted little parlour, and,
unchallenged, left the hotel, and went out into the tree-
planted Place, where the band was playing, and people walking
up and down under the chill grey skies. She felt very hopeful
and joyous, so different from the first time she had started
on the same errand, and the fact inspired her with ever-
increasing confidence. She had failed then, and yet here she
was, successful in her last attempts, ready to make another
crowning trial, and with how many more chances in her favour!
Surely she could not fail now!--and yet if she should! She was
turning towards the Redoute, when an idea suddenly occurred to
her--an idea most natural, arising, as it did, from that
instinctive cry for more than human help, that awakes in every
heart on great emergencies, and appealing, moreover, to that
particular class of religious sentiment which in our little
orphaned Madelon had most readily responded to convent
teaching.
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