“That poor little one,” she said, “I should like to have one look at her, just to see that she is quiet; I don’t think she half understood, or took in, what I said to her.”

“Madame Lavaux told me she was in bed,” Graham answered, “but we will see if she is asleep.  Poor child, she will understand it all soon enough.”

He opened the door gently between the two rooms, and they looked in.  All was dark and silent, but they could just distinguish a little head laid on the white pillow, and could hear Madelon’s soft, regular breathing.

“That is all right,” said Graham, “we will not go in and disturb her; she will sleep till the morning, I daresay, for she was up almost all last night.”  He closed the door again as he spoke, and so they left her.

It was true that Madelon was asleep, but she was not exactly in bed.  When the Sister had come in to tell her of her father’s death, she had found her seated on the ground close to the door, with her hands clasped round her knees, her head leaning against the doorway; some one had bought in some supper on a tray, but it stood on the table untouched, though she had eaten nothing since the morning.  She did not move when Soeur Angelique came in, but she looked up with an expression of dumb, helpless misery that went to the Sister’s heart; she sat down beside her on the floor, put her arm round her, and told her the sad news in her gentle, quiet tones, which had acquired a ring of sympathy and tenderness in a thousand mournful scenes of sorrow and despair; but, as she had said to Horace, she hardly knew whether the child understood her, or took in what she was saying.  Madelon did not speak nor cry; she only sat gazing at the little Sister with a look of perplexed terror dilating her brown eyes, that never changed as Soeur Angelique went on with her pious, gentle maxims and consolations, which fell blankly enough we may be sure on our small Madelon’s bewildered mind; and presently, hearing herself called, and seeing indeed that she was making no impression with her kind little speeches, the Sister rose to go, saying as she did so, “You will go to bed now, chere petite, will you not?” and then thinking that a familiar face and voice might perhaps have a kindlier influence than her own just then, she added, “and I will ask Madame Lavaux to come to you.”

“No, no,” cried Madelon, suddenly rousing, and starting up at these last words.  She had comprehended what the Sister had told her well enough so far as words went, but she was too stunned and confused to take in their full meaning; and in truth her presence there at all had only been another unfamiliar element in this bewildering whirl of events, imparting an additional sense of unreality.  But when she mentioned Madame Lavaux, the name linked itself at once with recent memories and emotions, and its accustomed association with her every-day life made it a rallying point, as it were, for her scattered ideas.  Madame