She would lean her arms on the window-sill, and look out on the midnight sky; the Abbey chimes would ring out over the great city, overhead the stars would be shining perhaps, but down below, between the trees in the Park, a great glare would show where a million lamps were keeping watch till dawn.  Shall we blame our Madelon, if she sometimes looked away from the stars, and down upon the glare that brightened far up into the dark sky?  All the young blood was throbbing and stirring in her veins with such energy and vigour; the world was so wide, so wide, the circle around her so narrow, and in that bright, misty past, which, after all, she only half understood, were to be found so many precedents for possibilities that might still be hidden in the future.  Shall we blame her, if, in her youthful belief in happiness as the chief good, her youthful impatience of peace, and calm, and rest, she longed with a great longing for movement, change, excitement?  Outside, as it seemed to her, in her vague young imagination, such a free, glorious life was going on—­and she had no part in it!  As she stood at her window, the distant, ceaseless roar of the street traffic would sound to her, in the stillness of the night, like the beat of the great waves of life that for ever broke and receded, before they could touch the weary spot where she stood spell-bound in isolation.  And through it all she said to herself, “When Monsieur Horace comes home,”—­and now Monsieur Horace had come, would he do anything to help her?

Graham, indeed, was willing enough to do what he could do for her; and before he went to bed that night he wrote the following letter to his sister, Mrs. Vavasour: 

“My dear Georgie,

“The butter and eggs arrived in safety, and Aunt Barbara declared herself much pleased with your hamper of country produce; but you will, no doubt, have heard from her before this.  She is looking wonderfully well, and not a day older than when I left England.  As for Madeleine Linders, I hardly recognised her, she is so grown and so much improved.  I find I have at least a fortnight’s business in London, and then I will run down to you for another visit, if I may.  Would it put you out very much if I brought Madeleine with me for a time?  I should like you and her to know each other, and a change would do her good.  Aunt Barbara seems to have been giving her a high-pressure education, with no fun to counterbalance it, and the poor child finds it horribly dull work; and no wonder—­I know I should be sorry to go through it myself.  A few weeks with you and the children would brighten her up, and do her all the good in the world.  Let me know what you think of it.

“Ever yours,

“Horace Graham.”

CHAPTER III.

At Ashurst.