And so more than half Madelon’s troubles are over, and she is really approaching the moment so looked and longed for, for which so much has been dared and risked!  Ah, is it so that our dearest hopes get fulfilled?  In after years Madelon always looked back upon the remainder of that day, as upon the previous night, as a sort of horrible nightmare, through which she struggled more and more painfully—­to what awakening we shall presently see.  The golden morning had faded into a grey drizzle; the mist hung upon the hills, hiding their tops, and there were low heavy clouds, presaging an afternoon of more decided rain.  The golden hope, too, that had so sustained and cheered our Madelon, seemed to have suddenly faded also; and in its place was that ever-increasing sense of utter weariness and aching limbs, which seemed as if it would overpower her before she had gone a dozen yards from the house.  She went on bravely, however, trying to brace herself with the consciousness of a great purpose, very near its fulfilment now; but somehow she seemed almost to have forgotten what it was, or why she had ever formed it.  Her keenest feeling at that moment was, perhaps, that expressed by the quick, furtive glance with which she looked round from time to time, as some following footstep made itself heard behind her.  The sudden alarm at Chaudfontaine had given rise to a haunting dread, which she was unable to shake off, though even that was rather a vague sensation than a well-defined, reasonable fear.

Still she kept on her way, strong in the strength of a resolution that had so taken possession of all the deepest feelings and affections of a most ardent little nature, that nothing but absolute physical inability could have held her back from keeping to it now.  It was perhaps well for her, however, that with her childish pleasure in planning every detail, she had arranged everything beforehand with such minuteness, that she had no need to reflect now as to what she had to do.  She had only to go on mechanically, and indeed she seemed to have no power of reflection left in her at all, as she walked slowly up the street, past the gay shops, where, a happy, chattering little girl, she had so often lingered with her father, to choose some pretty trifle.  Almost without thinking, so familiar was the road, did she enter the Redoute, and ascend the wide staircase; and then at last she feels a thrill as she sees before her the big salons that she has so often re-visited in her dreams, with their gilding, and mirrors, and velvet, that she loves so well, and with which some of her happiest hours are associated—­sees, too, the long green tables, where Monsieur Horace’s fortune is to be made, and Madelon’s promise redeemed at last.