black or red will win.  It matters little, it seems; whatever she stakes on, comes up; her small capital is being doubled an trebled.  She had taken off her veil, which hitherto she had carefully kept down, and the little flushed face, with the eager eyes that sparkle with impatience at every pause in the game, is noticed by several people round the table.  Her invariable luck, too, is remarked upon.  “Stake for me, mon enfant,” whispered a voice in her ear, and a little pile of five-franc pieces was put in front of her.  Madelon, hardly thinking of what she did, staked the stranger’s money along with her own on the red.  It won.  “Thank you, my child; it is the first time I have won to-night,” said the voice again, as a long hand covered with rings swept up the money.  Madelon turned round quickly:  behind her stood a woman with rouged cheeks, a low evening dress half concealed by a black lace shawl, beads and bracelets on her neck and arms—­a common figure enough—­there were half-a-dozen more such in the room—­and she took no more notice of Madelon, but went on pricking her card without speaking to her again.  But to the child there came a quick revulsion of feeling, that she could not have explained, as she shrank away from her gaudily-attired neighbour.  All at once the game seemed somehow to have lost its interest and excitement; the crowds, the heat, the light, suddenly oppressed her; for the first time her heart gave way.  She felt scared, friendless, lonely.  There came to her mind a thought of the peaceful faces of the black-robed sisters, a sound as of the tinkling bell ringing above the old cabbage-ground, a breath sweet with the scent of fresh roses in Jeanne-Marie’s little garden; she had a momentary impulse to go, to fly somewhere, anywhere—­ah! but whither?  Whither in all the wide world could she go?  Back to the convent to be made a nun?  Back to Jeanne-Marie with her promise unfulfilled?  “I will keep my promise, I will not be frightened,” thinks the poor child, bravely; “I will fancy that papa is in the room, and that he will take care of me.”  And all these thoughts pass through he head while the croupier is crying, “Faites votre jeu, Messieurs, faites votre jeu!” and in, and on she goes again.

And while she is intent on making Monsieur Horace’s fortune, Monsieur Horace himself, not five hundred yards off, is walking up and down the Place Royale, listening to the band, and troubling his head not at all about fortune-making, but very much about Madelon.  On his recovery from his illness, he had come to Spa to drink the waters, and had been there nearly a month, during which time he had twice been over to Liege to make inquiries about Madelon.  His dismay had been great, when, on his first visit to the convent, he had learnt that Mademoiselle Linders was dead, that her little niece had disappeared three or four months before, and that nothing had been heard of her since, with the exception of the vague, anonymous letter