Ruth withdrew.
"Let us go to your boudoir, Madeleine," said Maurice.
Madeleine, as she complied, remarked,—
"You are troubled to-day, Maurice; two bright spots are burning upon your cheeks; you look excited; what has happened?"
"Much or little, as it may prove," replied Maurice, taking a seat beside her. "In the first place, my grandmother has concluded to leave Washington in a week, and, after she reaches New York, take the first steamer to Havre."
Maurice had given this intelligence so suddenly that Madeleine was off her guard, and the rapid varying of her color, the heaving breast, the look of anguish, the broken voice in which she exclaimed, "So soon? so very soon?" rekindled his expiring hopes.
"This has been but a brief meeting, Madeleine, after the separation of those long, sorrowful years. The future is all uncertain, I cannot fix a time, after I have said adieu, when I may clasp this dear hand again."
"But," faltered Madeleine, "your profession,—you will not abandon that? You will return to Charleston?"
"It is my earnest desire to do so."