Yes; they were still there, those two, not walking up and down now, but standing under the big tree at the end of the lawn still talking, as she could see by their gestures. "Ah, how happy they are!" thinks our Madelon again, forgetting the scene of the afternoon, her doubts, her half-formed suspicions--how happy they must be, Monsieur Horace, who loves Maria, Maria who is loved by Monsieur Horace, whilst she--why, it is she who loves Monsieur Horace, who has loved him since he rescued her, a little child, from loneliness and despair-- she, who for all these years has had but one thought, Monsieur Horace, one object, Monsieur Horace, and who sees herself now shut out from such a bright, gleaming paradise, into such shivering outer darkness. Ah, she loved him--she loved him--she owned it to herself now, with a sudden burst of passion--and he was going away; he had no thought of her; his path in life lay along one road, and hers along another--a road how blank, how dreary, wrapped in what grey, unswerving mists. "Ah, why must I live? Oh! that I could die--if I could only die!" cries the poor child passionately in her thoughts, stretching out her hands in her young impatience of life and suffering. "I love him--is it wrong? How can I help it? I loved him before I knew what it meant, I never knew till----" She stopped suddenly, with a blush that seemed to set her cheeks all a-flame--she had never known till half-an-hour ago, when she had looked up and met his eyes for that one moment. Ah! why had he looked at her so? And she--oh, merciful heavens! had she betrayed herself? At the very thought Madelon started as if she had been stung. She turned from the window, she covered her face with her hands, and escaping swiftly, she fled to her own room, and throwing herself on the bed, buried her face in the pillow, to wrestle through her poor little tragedy of love, and self-consciousness, and despair.