‘Little Madeline!’ he exclaimed. ‘Why, she looks quite a woman!’
About a week after this event, Judas (now grown into a disjointed being of seventeen or eighteen) entered with a telegram. White opened it, and saw with astonishment that it was from Madame Brock, the lady superintendent of the school at Merton.
Then he read as follows:—
Please come down at once. I have had terrible news from Millefleurs.
Your ward, Madeline Haslemere, has run away. I fear it is an elopement.
CHAPTER XI.—THE HAWK AND THE DOVE.
The scene of our story changes for a time from smoky London to a lonely road close to the sea-coast of Normandy. It is the sunset of a rainy day, a fierce red light beats down on the yellow colza fields, sprinkled with great bells of crimson poppy; on the deep, wind-swept patches of yellow wheat; on the little villages embowered in foliage, each with its old-fashioned auberge and its glittering spire.
An open post-chaise, drawn by a pair of heavy horses, is flying seaward, towards the marine town of Fécamp. Side by side within it sit two figures, a very young lady, wrapped in a fur-lined silk cloak, and a tall, haggard-looking man of thirty, with very long hair and a jet-black moustache.