And meanwhile this was what Madelon was saying,—­

“In another month, Madelon,” Graham had said to her, “we shall be at L——­, and you will be looking out on the blue skies that you have so often longed for.”

“Yes,” she replied, “and then perhaps I shall be thinking of the grey ones I have left behind; I shall be sorry to leave England after all.  I will pay your country so much of a compliment as that, Monsieur Horace, or rather I shall be sorry to leave some of the English people—­Aunt Barbara, I do not like to think of her alone; she will miss me, she says.”

“I should not wonder if she did, Madelon.”

“I do not know why she should; I think I have been ungrateful to her; she has been so good, so kind to me, why have I not been able to love her more?  Where should I have been if she had not taken care of me? and such care!  If I lived to be a hundred I could never repay all she has done, and now I am going away to be happy, and she will be lonely and sad.”

“We will ask her to come and see us, some day, at L——.  I saw a house when I was there, that would suit us exactly, and it has a room, which shall be sometimes for Aunt Barbara, sometimes for Madge.  It has an open gallery, and an outside staircase leading down to the garden, which will delight Madge’s small mind.”

“Like my room at Le Trooz,” cried Madelon.  “Ah! how glad I am that you can go there first, and that I shall see Jeanne-Marie again; if only we do not find her ill—­it is so long since I have heard from her, and she used to write so regularly.”

“For my part,” said Graham, “I wish to see the hotel at Chaudfontaine, where I first met a small person who was very rude to me, I remember.”

“And your wish will not be gratified, sir, for the season will be over by next month and the hotel closed for the winter.  I am sorry for that, but I wonder you can wish to see a place where any one was rude to you—­now with me of course it is different.”

“In what way, Madelon?”

“Ah! that I will not tell you—­but we will go to the convent at Liege, Monsieur Horace; I would like to see Soeur Lucie again.  Poor Soeur Lucie—­but it is sad to think that she is always there making her confitures—­there are so many other things to be done in the world.”

“For example?”

“Joining a marching regiment,” she said, looking at him half-laughing, half-shyly.  “Monsieur Horace, where will you go when you are tired of L——?  You will be tired of it some day, I know, and so shall I. Where will you go next?”

“I don’t know,” he answered; “you see, Madelon, in taking a wife, I undertake a certain responsibility; I can’t go marching about the world as if I were a single man.”