From the tone of her letters, and from her words when they met, he gathered that she was happy. She had gained the wish of her heart; had learnt ‘French and music,’ as well as the other elegances which constitute a good education. So Madeline was sent to Normandy, with a contingent of young girls from the school at Merton. One day, when nearly eighteen months had elapsed since their last meeting, White received a photograph from France. It represented a fair maiden, with great wistful eyes, and a face of singular beauty. At first he scarcely knew it; then he turned it over, and read in a bold handwriting:-- _Madeline Hasleere, taken at Rouen on her 17th birthday._ ‘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. Every now and again the man leans forward and urges on the driver, then, after a quick glance on the road, which winds far away behind them, he sinks back upon his seat. They halt and change horses in a quaint little village, where old women and maidens ply their antique spinning-wheels at the cottage doors, and blue-bloused loungers puff their _sous_ cigars on wooden forms before the auberge. They do not alight, but the gentleman brings the lady a tiny glass of the liqueur called ‘Bénédictin,’ and some wine biscuits. She sips the liqueur and breaks a biscuit, while the loungers in blue blouses look on in admiration. The young lady is very pale, and looks so young that the loungers whisper wonderingly at each other. Now and then her lip quivers, and her eyes fill with tears. The gentleman with her watches her anxiously, trying to anticipate every look and wish, but she scarcely looks at him--her thoughts are far away.