"How hot it is!" she said, glancing round impatiently. "Where is every one gone? Cannot we go too? No, not in to supper. What is going on in that little room? I have not been there."
"It leads into the garden, I think," answered Graham. "Shall we see? Wait a moment. I will fetch you a shawl, and then, if you like, we can go out."
He strode off quickly. There was vexation and perplexity in his kind heart too. He understood well enough how the girl had been wounded—his little Madelon, for whom it would have seemed a small thing to give his right hand, could such a sacrifice have availed her aught. And he could do nothing. His compassion insulted her, his interference she would have resented; no, he could do nothing to protect his little girl. So he thought as he made his way into the cloak-room to extract a shawl. He was going his way in the world, and she hers, and she might be suffering, lonely, unprotected, for aught that he could do, unless—unless——
"Those cloaks belong to Lady Adelaide's party," cried the maid, as Graham recklessly seized hold of one in a bundle. "You must not take those, sir; Lady Adelaide will be going immediately."
"Confound the cloaks, and Lady Adelaide too!" cried Graham, impatiently. "Here, give me something—anything. Where is Miss Linders' shawl? Which are Mrs. Vavasour's things?"
Madelon had stood still for a moment after Horace had left her, and then, as he did not immediately return, she left her station behind the window-curtain, and began walking up and down the room. "How tired I am!" she thought wearily. "Will this evening never end? Oh! I wish I have never come. I wish I were going away somewhere, anywhere, so that I should never see or hear again of anybody, that knows anything about me. Why cannot we go home? It must be very late. I wonder what time it is? Perhaps there is a clock in here."
The door of the room which Graham had said led into the garden stood ajar; she pushed it open, and went in. It was a small room, with a glass door at the further end, and on this evening had been arranged for cards, so that Madelon, on entering, suddenly found herself in the midst of green-baize- covered tables, lighted candles, packs of cards, and a dozen or so of silent, absorbed gentlemen, intent upon the trumps and honours, points and odd tricks. The girl, already excited, and morbidly susceptible, stopped short at this spectacle, as one struck with a sudden blow. Not for years, not since that evening the memory of which ever came upon her with a sudden sting, when she had met Monsieur Horace at the gambling-tables of Spa, had Madelon seen a card; Mrs. Treherne never had them in her house; in those little parties of which mention has been made as her only dissipation, they had formed no part of the entertainment, and the sight of them now roused a thousand tumultuous emotions of pain and pleasure. A thousand associations attached themselves to those little bits of pasteboard, whose black and red figures seemed to dance before her eyes—recollections of those early years with their for- ever-gone happiness, of her father, of happy evenings that she, an innocent, unconscious child, had passed at his side, building houses with old packs of cards, or spinning the little gold pieces that passed backwards and forwards so freely. She was happy then, happier than she could ever be again, she thought despairingly, now that she had been taught so sore a knowledge of good and evil. The last evening of her father's life came suddenly before her; she seemed to hear again his last words to herself, to see the scene with Legros, the cards tumbling in a heap on the floor, his dying face. A kind of terror seized her, and she stood gazing as though fascinated at the dozen respectable gentlemen dealing their cards and marking their games, till Graham's step and voice aroused her.
"Here is your shawl, Madelon," he said, putting it round her shoulders; "did you think I was ever coming? That woman——"
He stopped short in his speech; she turned round and looked at him with her white, scared face, her wide-open, brown eyes, as if she had seen a ghost. Ghosts enough, indeed, our poor Madelon had seen during these last five minutes; but they were not visible to Graham, who stood sufficiently astonished and alarmed, as she turned abruptly away again, and disappeared through the glass door into the garden.
"Stay, Madelon!" he cried and followed her out into the night.