CHAPTER VII.

Conclusion.

The hotel at Chaudfontaine was closed for the winter.  Every window in the big white building was shuttered, every door barred; the courtyard was empty; not a footstep, nor a voice was resounded.  Nevertheless, an open carriage from Liege stopped in front of the gate, and two people getting out, proceeded to look through the iron bars of the railing.

“Was I not right?” said Madelon.  “I told you, Horace, it would be closed for the winter, and so it is.”

“I don’t care in the least,” he replied.  “If it affords me any gratification, Madelon, to look through the railings into that courtyard, I don’t see why I should not have it.”

“Oh! by all means,” she answered; “but it is just a little tame, is it not?—­for a sentimental visit, to be looking through these iron bars.”

“That is the very place where I sat,” said Graham, not heeding her, “and took you on my knee.”

“I don’t remember anything about it, Monsieur Horace——­”

“Nothing, Madelon?”

“Well, perhaps—­you gave me a fish, I remember—­it was the fish that won my heart; and I have it still, you see.”

“Oh! then, your heart was won?”

“A little,” she answered, glancing up at him for a moment; and then, moving on, she said, “See here, Horace, this is the hawthorn bush under which I slept that morning after I had run away from the convent.  How happy I was to have escaped!  I remember standing at this gate afterwards eating my bread, and that dreadful woman came out of the hotel.”

“Is there no way of getting in?” said Graham, shaking the gate.

“None, I am afraid,” Madelon answered.  “Stay, there used to be a path that led round at the back across a little bridge into the garden.  Perhaps we might get in that way.”

They were again disappointed; they found the path, and the wooden bridge that crossed the stream, but another closed gate prevented their entering the garden.

“This, however, becomes more and more interesting,” said Graham, after looking at the spot attentively.  “Yes, this is the very place, Madelon, where I first saw you with a doll in your arms.”

“Really!” she said.

“Yes, really; and then some one—­your father, I think—­called you away.”

They were silent for a minute, looking at the trees, the shrubs, the grass growing all rough and tangled in the deserted garden.

“We must go,” Graham said at last; “it is getting late, Madelon, and we have to drive back to Liege, remember, after we have seen Jeanne-Marie.”

They got into the carriage again, and drove on towards Le Trooz, along the valley under the hills, all red and brown with October woods, beside the river, gleaming between green pastures in the low afternoon sun.  They had arrived at Liege the day before, and that morning was to have been devoted to visiting the convent; but the convent was gone.  On inquiry, they learnt that the nuns had removed to another house ten miles distant from Liege, and on the hills where the old farm-house, the white, low-roofed convent had once stood so peacefully, a great iron-foundry was smoking and spouting fire day and night, covering field and garden with heaps of black smouldering ashes.