The next moment she had dropped her bundle on the flower-bed below, and was scrambling out of the low window, clinging to the window-sill, catching hold of tough stems and pliant branches, crashing down through twigs, and leaves, and flowers, on to the ground beneath.  Could these convent-trained vines and roses have known what daring little culprit was amongst them, would they have cried aloud for aid, I wonder, stretching out thorny sprays, and twining tendrils, to catch and detain her prisoner?—­or would they not rather, in their sweet liberty of air, and dew, and sunshine, have done their best to help forward this poor little captive in her flight, aiding her in her descent, and shielding her from all prying eyes with their leafy branches, their interlacing sprays of red buds, and soft, faint flowers?

But they paid no heed one way or the other, and Madelon, with not a few scratches on her hands, and more that one rent in her frock, was safely on the ground.  It was all the work of a moment; in another she had caught up her bundle, and was darting over the lawn, across the twilit garden, as if the whole sisterhood were in pursuit.  Hardly knowing how she did it, she clambered up the wall, through the big westeria, reached the top, and slipping, sliding, found herself in the pathway running round the outside, scratched, bruised, and breathless, but without the walls, and so far free, at any rate.  Months afterwards she found some withered lilac-blossoms lodged amongst the ribbons of her hat; how they recalled to her the moment of that desperate rush and clamber, the faint, dewy scent of the flowers, which she noticed even then, the rustle and crash of the branches, which startled her as with the sound of pursuing footsteps.

Once outside, she paused for a moment to take breath, and be certain that no one was following her.  All was quiet, and in the stillness she could hear, as once before, the voices of the nuns singing in the chapel.  Picking up her bundle again, she walked quickly away, along the little weed-grown path at the back of the building, down the slope of the ploughed field, up which she had come with Horace Graham two years and a half ago.  In thinking over her journey beforehand, she had decided that it would be unwise to be walking along the highroad whilst there was still any daylight left, and that she would hide herself somewhere till it should be quite dark, before setting out on her walk to Chaudfontaine.  So, as soon as she had reached the bottom of the unsheltered slope, she looked about for a place of refuge.  She found it in a clump of trees and bushes growing by the roadside; and creeping in amongst them, our Madelon’s slim little figure was very well concealed amongst the shadows from any passer-by.  Eight o’clock had struck as she left the convent.  “I will wait till nine,” she resolved.  “An hour will not be very long, and it will be quite dark by that time.”  And so she did wait, with the most determined impatient patience, through an hour that seemed as if it would never end, whilst the darkness fell, and passing footsteps became more and more rare.  At last she heard the shrill-toned convent clock strike nine, and coming out of her place of concealment, she began her journey in earnest.