As for the Countess G——­, there had been a flatness about the termination of her share in Madelon’s adventures that effectually put a stop to any desire on her part to pursue the matter further; and finding, on her arrival at Liege, that her husband was obliged to start for Brussels that very afternoon, she found it convenient altogether to dismiss the subject from her mind.  With her departure from Liege, we also gladly dismiss her from these pages for ever.

So Madelon, tossing and moaning on her bed of sickness, is once more all alone in the world, except for Jeanne-Marie, to whom, before two days were over, she had somehow become the one absorbing interest in life.  The lonely woman, whose sympathies and affections had, as one might guess, been all bruised, and warped, and crushed in some desperate struggle, or in some long agony, found a new channel for them in an indescribable, yearning love for the little pale girl whom she had rescued, and by whose side she sat hour after hour, wondering, as she listened to her wild broken talk about her father and Monsieur Horace, Aunt Therese, and Soeur Lucie, what the child’s past life could have been, and by what strange chances she had come to be in such evil straits.  A new world of hopes and fears, of interests and anxieties, seemed to have suddenly opened for Jeanne-Marie, as she sat in the little upper chamber; whilst in the public room downstairs the rough men, in obedience to her word, sat silently drinking and smoking, or talking in subdued voices, so that no disturbing sound might reach the sick child above.

Madelon’s second attack of fever was far worse than the first.  Weakened as she was by her former illness, it was an almost hopeless fight with death that was carried on for days; and when the crisis came at last, the doctor himself declared that it was scarcely possible that she should rally, and be restored to life and reason.  But the crisis passed, and Madelon was once more safe.  She awoke about midnight to the confused consciousness of a strange room, perplexing her with unfamiliar surroundings.  A dim light burned before the coloured picture of a saint that hung on the rough white-washed wall, and by its uncertain gleams she could distinguish the rude furniture, the patchwork quilt, the heavy rafters that crossed above her head.  The window stood wide open, letting in the night scents of the flowers in the garden below; she could see a space of dark, star-lit sky; and hear the rustling of the trees, the whispering of the breeze among the vine-leaves that clustered about the window.  Her eyes wandered round with vague bewilderment, the flickering light and long shadows only seeming to confuse her more, as she tried to reconcile her broken, shadowy memories with the present realities, which seemed more dreamlike still.

The door opened, and Jeanne-Marie came in, holding another candle, which she shaded with her hand, as she stood by the bed for a moment, looking down upon Madelon.