Ah, if she had but died there, died while she was
all unconscious, before this cruel grief and disappointment
had come upon her!
And meanwhile, Jeanne-Marie, in the room below, had been
hardening her heart against the child after her own fashion.
She had answered Mrs. Treherne's questions curtly, rejected
the faintest suggestion of money as an insult, and stood
eyeing Graham defiantly while the talk went on. "Madelon has
grand new friends now," she was thinking all the time very
likely, "and will go away and be happy, and forget all about
me; well, let her go--what does it matter?" And then presently,
going upstairs to look for this happy, triumphant Madelon, she
found her crouching on the floor, trying to stifle the sound
of her despairing sobs.
"Oh, Jeanne-Marie, Jeanne-Marie!" she cried, as soon as she
could speak, "I wish I might stay with you, I wish I had never
gone away; what was the use of it all? I thought I was going
to be so happy, and now I am to go to England, and Monsieur
Horace is to go to America, and I shall never, never, be happy
again!"
"What was the use of what?" says Jeanne-Marie, taking the
child into her kind arms; "why will you never be happy again?
Are they unkind to you? Is that gentleman downstairs Monsieur
Horace that you used to talk about?"
"Yes, that is Monsieur Horace.
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