Lavaux had been cross and unkind to her the night before; Madame had buoyed her up with false hopes of her father’s recovery only that morning; Madelon did not want her, would not see her.  She stood still for a few minutes after the Soeur de Charite had left the room, all her sorrows and doubts and certainties resolved for the moment into a dull, unreasoning dread of seeing Madame Lavaux come in; and then, suddenly fancying she heard footsteps approaching the door, she hastily blew out her candle, and all dressed as she was, crept under the coverlet of the bed.  She would pretend to be asleep, she thought, and then no one would disturb her.  The footsteps passed on, but presently the door did open, and some one looked in:  it was Madame Lavaux, who, seeing that Madelon made no sign, concluded that she was asleep, and went away softly, with a kind pity in her heart for the desolate child.  As for Madelon, the pretence of slumber soon passed into reality, for, after lying awake for a while listening to the low voices and rustling movements in the next room, fatigue and her own enforced tranquillity overcame her, and she fell sound asleep.

It must have been long past midnight when she awoke again with a sudden feeling of fright and strangeness, for which she could not account, but which made her spring off the bed and listen if she could hear any one moving.  All was very still; not a sound came from the adjoining apartment; her own room was quite dark, for the windows and outside shutters were closed.  Madelon felt scared, lonely, desolate, without knowing why; and then, all at once, she remembered the reason.  All that the Sister had said came back with fresh meaning and distinctness to her senses restored by sleep; and, sitting down on the floor just where she was, she began to cry with a low moaning, sobbing sound, as a child cries when it is sorry and not naughty.

No one heard her, no one came near her; she was all alone, and in a few minutes she stopped crying, half frightened at her own voice in the silence and darkness.  And then she began to wonder if her father were still in the next room, or whether they had taken him away anywhere; if not, he was all alone in there, as she was in here.  It would be some comfort to be with him, she thought.  Madelon knew that he was dead, but death was an unfamiliar experience with her; and she could not perhaps clearly separate this hour from all other hours when she had been hurt, or sorrowful, or frightened, and had run to her father to be comforted.

She got up, and, opening the door, stole softly into the other room.  It was not quite so dark in there:  the windows and Venetian shutters were wide open, and a lamp in the street below gave an uncertain light, by which she could just distinguish the gleam of the mirror, the table in the centre of the room, and the bed, where the outline of a silent form was vaguely defined under the white covering sheet.  Madelon had had some half-formed idea of getting on to the