Madelon had long finished her breakfast, but, busy with these recollections, was still lingering outside the courtyard, when a gentleman and lady came out of the hotel and walked down towards the gate. The gentleman was stout, black-haired, red- faced, and good-humoured-looking; the lady elderly, thin, and freckled, with a much tumbled silk gown, and frizzy, sandy hair, under a black net bonnet, adorned with many artificial flowers. In all our Madelon's reminiscences of the past, these two figures assuredly had no place, and yet this was by no means the first time they had met at this very hotel. The lady was the Countess G----, with whom one memorable evening Madelon had had a grand fight over a roulette board; the gentleman was Horace Graham's _quondam_ fellow-traveller, the Countess's old admirer, and now her husband. They were talking as they came together down the courtyard, and Madelon caught the last words of their conversation. "Adieu, _mon ami_," cried the lady, as they approached the gate; "I shall rejoin you this afternoon at Liege." "And by the earliest train possible, I beg of you," answered the other. "I may find it necessary to go on to Brussels this evening." "By the earliest train possible, _mon ami_. Adieu, then,--_au revoir_." "_Au revoir, ma cherie_," answered the gentleman, turning back to the hotel, but pausing before he had taken a dozen steps. _"Ma cherie_, you will not forget my business at Madame Bertrand's?" "But no, _mon ami_, it shall be attended to without fail." "_Ma cherie_----" "_Mon ami_----" "You must hasten, or you will miss the train."