He held out his hand again with a very kind smile.  She looked up at him.

“Monsieur Horace,” she said, “I—­I do—­”

And then she put both hands into his with her old, childish gesture, and I daresay the little weary spirit thought it had found its rest at last.

CHAPTER VI.

Mrs. Treherne’s Forgiveness.

Mrs. Treherne was sitting in the drawing-room of her London house.  The window was open to the hot dusty street, long shadows lay upon the deserted pavement, the opposite houses were all closed, and no sound disturbed the stillness of the September evening but the shouts of the children, as they played up and down the steps, and under the porticoes of the houses, and the bells of the Westminster clocks chiming one quarter after another.  Through the half-drawn curtains that hung between the two drawing-rooms she could see Graham and Madelon sitting together, looking out upon the Park, as they talked in low tones, and a sudden sadness filled her heart.  They were to be married next week, and go abroad at once, whilst she returned to Cornwall; and the even current of a lonely life, that had been stirred and altered in its course five years ago, would return to its original channel, to be disturbed, perhaps, no more.

It was of these five years that Mrs. Treherne was thinking now, and of others, perhaps, beyond them again, when she too had been young, and beloved, and happy.  There are some lives which, in their even tenour of mild happiness, seem to glide smoothly from one scattered sorrow to another, so that to the very end some of the hopefulness and buoyancy of youth are retained; but there are others in which are concentrated in one brief space those keen joys and keener sorrows that no one quite survives, which, in passing over us take from us our strongest vitality, our young capacity for happiness and suffering alike.  Such a life had been Mrs. Treherne’s.  She had been a woman of deep affections and passions, and they all lay buried in those early years that had taken from her husband, and children, and friend, and it was only a dim shadow of her former self that moved, and spoke, and lived in these latter days.

It was an old story with her now, however.  She did not envy these two happy people who were talking together in the next room.  It was of Madelon she was thinking most, thinking sadly enough that in all these years she had not been able to win the girl’s heart.  When she had first seen the child of the friend who in all the world had been most dear to her, she had promised herself that, for Magdalen’s sake, she would take her home and bring her up as her own daughter; and she had kept her promise, but she had failed in making her happy.  She knew it now, when she contrasted the Madelon of to-day, going about with the light in her eyes, and the glad ring in her voice, with the Madelon of six months ago.  She had not been able to make her happy, and she would leave her without a regret; and the thought gave Mrs. Treherne a sharper pang than she had felt for many a day.