“How did you know that I had run away from the convent?” she asked.

“You said so,” answered Jeanne-Marie.  “You were afraid that your aunt would come and take you back.”

“Aunt Therese is dead,” said Madelon.  “I remember it all very well now.  Did I tell you that?  And did I tell you about papa, too?  How strange that I should not remember having said so many things,” she added, as the woman replied in the affirmative.

“Not at all strange,” replied Jeanne-Marie.  “People often talk like that when ill, and recollect nothing of it afterwards.”

“Still, it is very odd,” said Madelon, musing; and then she added, suddenly, “Did I talk of any one else?”

“Of plenty of people,” replied Jeanne-Marie.  “Soeur Lucie, and Soeur Francoise, and numbers of others.”

“Ah! yes; but I don’t mean in the convent!—­any one out of the convent, I mean?  Did I talk of—­Monsieur Horace?”

“Sometimes,” said Jeanne-Marie, counting her stitches composedly.

“What did I say about him?” asked Madelon, anxiously.  “Please will you tell me?  I can’t remember, you know.”

Jeanne-Marie looked at her for a moment, and then said, rather bluntly,—­

“Nothing that anybody could understand.  You called to him, and then you told him not to come; that was all, and not common sense either.”

“Ah, that is all right,” said Madelon, satisfied; her secret at least was safe, and never, never, should it be revealed till she had accomplished her task.  As she once more mentally recorded this little vow, she looked at Jeanne-Marie, who was still sitting by her bedside knitting.

“Jeanne-Marie,” she said in her tired, feeble little voice, and putting out one of her small thin hands, “you are very, very good to me; I can’t think how any one can be so kind as you are; I shall love you all my life.  What would have become of me if you had not found me and taken such care of me?”

“What will become of you if you don’t leave off talking, and do as the doctor bids you?” said Jeanne-Marie, stopping her little speech; “he said you were to be quite quiet, and here have you been chattering this half-hour; now I am going to get your dinner.”

As she became stronger, Madelon would sometimes have long conversations with Jeanne-Marie—­in which she would tell her much about her past life, of her father, of how happy she had been as a little child, of how miserable she had been in the convent, and of how she had hated the life there.  But more often she would lie still for hours, almost perfectly silent, thinking, brooding over something—­Jeanne-Marie would wonder what.  Madelon never told her; she had begun to love and cling to the woman, almost the only friend she had in the world, but not even in her would she confide; she had made the resolution to tell no one of her plans and hopes, to trust no one, lest her purpose should in any way be frustrated; and she kept to it, though at the cost of some pain and trouble, so natural is it to seek for help and sympathy.