“Bah!” said M. Linders, “English or French, it is all one to me; and what harm could he do to the little one?  It was an accident, but it does not matter for once.  Come, Madelon, you have forgotten to mark.”

“It is your turn to deal next, papa,” said the child, “may I do it for you?”

Horace Graham left Chaudfontaine by the earliest train the following morning; and of all the people he had seen on that Sunday evening at the hotel, only two ever crossed his path again in after years—­M.  Linders, and his little daughter, Madeleine.

CHAPTER IV.

Retrospect.

M. Linders was of both Belgian and French extraction, his father having been a native of Liege, his mother a Parisian of good family, who, in a moment of misplaced sentiment, as she was wont in after years to sigh, had consented to marry a handsome young Belgian officer, and had expiated her folly by spending the greater part of her married life at Malines, where her husband was stationed, and at Liege, where his mother and sister resided.  Adolphe’s education, however, was wholly French; for Madame Linders, who, during her husband’s life, had not ceased to mourn over her exile from her own city, lost no time, after his death, in returning to Paris with her two children, Therese, a girl of about twelve, and Adolphe, then a child five or six years old.

Madame Linders had money, but not much, and she made it go further than did ever Frenchwoman before, which is saying a great deal.  Adolphe must be educated, Adolphe must be clothed, Adolphe was to be a great man some day; he was to go into the army, make himself a name, become a General, a Marshal,—­heaven knows what glories the mother did not dream for him, as she turned and twisted her old black silks, in the entresol in the Chaussee d’Antin, where she had her little apartment.  She had friends in Paris, and must keep up appearances for Adolphe’s sake, not to mention her own, and so could not possibly live in a cheap out-of-the-way quarter.

As for Therese, she was of infinitely small account in the family.  She was plain, not too amiable, nor particularly clever, and inclined to be devote; and, as in spite of positive and negative failings, she also had to eat and be clothed as well as her handsome fair brother, she could be regarded as nothing else than a burden in the economical household.

“You ask me what I shall do with Therese?” said Madame Linders one day to a confidential friend.  “Oh! she will go into a convent, of course.  I know of an excellent one near Liege, of which her aunt is the superior, and where she will be perfectly happy.  She has a turn that way.  What else can I do with her, my dear?  To speak frankly, she is laide a faire peur, and she can have no dot worth mentioning; for I have not a sou to spare; so there is no chance of her marrying.”

Therese knew her fate, and was resigned to it.  As her mother said, she had a turn that way; and to the Liege convent she according went, but not before Madame Linders’ death, which took place when her daughter was about seven-and-twenty, and which was, as Therese vehemently averred, occasioned by grief at her son’s conduct.