“Certainly, if you really wish it,” answered Graham with some hesitation, and then added frankly, “I have no sort of right to offer an opinion, but will you not consider a moment before fixing on such a fate for your child?  She is surely very young to be thrown amongst strangers, on such a doubtful career, especially without you at hand to protect her.”

“It is true I shall not be there,” said the father with a groan; “I had forgotten that.  And I shall never see my little one grown up.  Ah! what is to become of her?”

“Has she no relations?” said Graham, “in England for instance——­”

“In England!” cried M. Linders fiercely, “what could make you fancy that?”

“I had understood that her mother was English——­” began Graham.

“You are right, Monsieur; her mother was English, but she has no English relations, or, if she has, they are nothing to her, and she shall never know them.  No,” he said slowly, after a pause, “I suppose there is only one thing to be done, and yet I would almost rather she lay here dead by my side, that we might be buried together in one grave; it would perhaps be happier for her, poor little one!  Ah, what a fate! but it must be—­you are right, I cannot send her out alone and friendless into the world, she must go to her aunt.”

“She has an aunt, then?” said Graham, with some surprise.

“Yes, Monsieur, she has an aunt, my sister Therese, with whom I quarrelled five and twenty years ago, and whom I have cordially hated ever since; and if ever woman deserved to be hated, she does;” and indeed, though he had not mentioned his sister’s name for years, the very sound of it seemed to revive the old enmity in all its fresh bitterness.  “She lives near Liege,” he went on presently.  “She is the Superior of a convent there, having risen to that eminence through her superior piety and manifold good works, doubtless.  Mon Dieu!” he cried, with another of his sudden impotent bursts of passion and tenderness, “that it should have come to this, that I should shut up my little one in a convent!  And she will be miserable—­she will blame me, she will think me cruel; but what can I do? what can I do?”

“But it seems to me the best thing possible,” said Graham, who, in truth, was not a little relieved by this sudden and unexpected solution of all difficulties.  “So many children are educated in convent, and are very happy there; she will be certainly well taught and cared for, and you must trust to your sister for the future.”

“Never!” he said, half raising himself on his elbow with a mighty effort.  “Well taught!—­yes, I know the sort of teaching she will get there; she will be taught to hate and despise me, and then they will make her a nun—­they will try to do it, but that shall never be!  I will make Madelon promise me that.  My little one a nun!—­I will not have it!  Ah!  I risk too much; she shall not go!”