"She has an aunt, then?" said Graham, with some surprise.
"Yes, Monsieur, she has an aunt, my sister Thérèse, 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 Liége," 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!"
He fell back on the pillow gasping, panting, almost sobbing, all pretence and semblance of cynicism and indifference gone in the miserable moment of weakness and despair. Was it for this, then, that he had taught his child to love him—that he had watched and guarded and cherished her—that he should place her now in the hands of his enemy, and that she should learn to hate his memory when he was dead? Ah! he was dying, and from the grave there would be no return—no hand could be stretched out from thence to claim her—no voice make itself heard to appeal to her old love for him, to remind her of happy bygone days when she had believed in him, and to bid her to be faithful to him still. Those others would be able to work their will then, while he lay silent for evermore, and his little one would too surely learn what manner of father she had had, perhaps—who knows?—learn to rejoice in the day that had set her free from his influence.
Graham very likely understood something of what was passing in M. Linders' mind, revealed, as it had been, by those few broken words, for he said in a kind voice,
"I think you may surely trust to your child's love for you, M. Linders, for she seems to have found all her happiness in it hitherto, and it is so strong and true that I do not think it will be easily shaken, nor can I fancy anyone will be cruel enough to attempt it." And then, seeing how little capable M. Linders seemed at that moment of judging wisely, he went on to urge the necessity of Madelon's being sent to her aunt as her natural guardian, representing the impossibility of leaving her without money or friends in the midst of strangers.
"There is a little money," said M. Linders, "a few thousand francs—I do not know how much exactly; you will find it in that desk. It would start her for the stage; she has talent— she would rise. S—— heard her sing once; if he were here now, we might arrange——"
He was rambling off in a low broken voice, hardly conscious, perhaps, of what he was saying. Graham once more interposed.
"No, no," he said, "you must not think of it. Let her go to her aunt. Don't be uneasy about her getting there safely; I will take charge of her."