‘I am just on the point of starting.’ he says abruptly; and Madeline, after puzzling her brain for a suitable reply, says—
‘It is a fine night for travelling—I wish you a pleasant journey, M’sieur.’
He pauses, and for a moment there is blank silence; then he returned to the old question—
‘You are sure,’ he says, ‘quite sure, that I can do nothing for you?’
And Madeline, feeling that since her last interview with Monsieur Belleisle her mantle of shame has fallen from her, gives such a decided negative that her companion goes.
How dark it is growing! and, with the coming on of night, how the girl’s spirits sink! She lights the gas, and looks at her watch. Half an hour only has passed since Monsieur Belleisle left her; some time, must yet elapse before he returns. Meanwhile, what can she do to make the time hang less heavily on her hands? She resolves to write letters, and, having got the waiter to supply her with pens, ink, and paper, sits down to concoct an epistle to Mr. White.
Madeline is impulsive, and the impulse of gratitude is just now strongly upon her. Her letter to White, after giving a short account of her elopement, is filled with the most pronounced eulogiums upon Monsieur Belleisle—his goodness, his self-sacrifice—and ends by asking White if he cannot make some reparation to the man. Her letter to Madame Collemache is less gushing, but more to the point. In it she promises to return on the morrow, implores Madame’s forgiveness, and tells her all. Having written the letters she hands them to the waiter to be posted forthwith. Her letter to Madame Collemache will arrive in the morning, a few hours before the return of the unlucky criminal herself. The thought of this comforts the girl; it will pave the way for the coming interview, and make it less trying, she thinks. When it occurs to her for a moment that Madame Collemache may refuse to have any interview at all, she reflects that the lady whom Monsieur Belleisle, with an amount of delicate consideration she had certainly never given him credit for, has volunteered to introduce, will be a sufficient guarantee of her conduct, and make all right again.
Again Madeline’s meditations are interrupted; this time by a carriage, which, after dashing rapidly along the street, stops suddenly before the door of the inn. Madeline runs to the window, and is just in time to see, by the flickering light of the street lamps, a figure, quietly dressed in black, descending from the voiture and entering the door of the inn. The arrival seems to have caused a sensation; sounds of voices come from below; steps come steadily up the stairs; then the door of the salle à manger opens, and the new arrivals enter the room.
One is Monsieur Belleisle, the other a lady clad in heavy widow’s mourning, who leans rather heavily on his arm.
At the first glance the lady appears to be young—her step is elastic, her figure slight; but when she comes right into the room, and stands beneath the glare of the gaslight, one can see at a glance that her age must be nearly sixty.