When Madeline recovered her senses she was lying upon her bed, with her maid bending anxiously above her. As she opened her eyes the girl uttered a cry.

‘Oh, thank God, you have awakened, dear Mademoiselle. I feared your eyes were closed for ever.’

But, without replying, Madeline only closed her eyes and became insensible again.

What was happening nobody knew, and the servants became very alarmed. It was strange, they thought, that at such a time, when the young lady was sick to death, her mother and cousin should leave the house; and yet they had gone, and had only just left a little note for Mademoiselle. It was well for Madeline that her own maid was kindly. She kept by her mistress’s side, although, one by one, the other servants fled.

Two days after the departure of Monsieur Belleisle, a strange English gentleman called at the hotel and asked for him. On being told that he was gone, and that the only occupant of the rooms now was a young lady who was supposed to be dying, he asked to be allowed to see her, and was conducted at once to Madeline’s apartment.

The young man walked up the stairs with the memory of his last meeting with the girl still in his mind. He felt very bitter against her, but the moment he entered the room where she was lying his bitterness melted away. How pale and ill she looked! How wasted, wretched, and sad! He bent for a moment to sadly regard the unconscious face, he pressed the wasted hand, felt the pulse; then turned to the maid, who stood looking on in mute amazement.

When Madeline was apparently prosperous, she did not enter into his calculations at all. Once, when he thought her in need of help, he had offered it—now, when he knew her to be in need, he gave it. By a few well-applied questions he extracted from the maid such facts as, coupled with those in his own knowledge, gave him a pretty correct idea of how things stood.

He still believed Madeline to be culpable—there was nothing to convince him to the contrary; but she was a countrywoman in distress, and he was still man enough to assist her. He announced his intention of looking after her, until such time as her relations could be communicated with and she could be left in proper hands.

He provided a proper doctor, and sent a professional nurse to share the vigils of Madeline’s French maid.

It was during these nights of nursing that the poor parched lips of the invalid muttered words which astonished the Englishman. For, little by little, word by word, she told him all. Sometimes she called on Belleisle for mercy, begging him to take her back to school; then she reproached him for having forced her into a marriage; then she cried and sobbed, vowing vehemently that she was his wife. She spoke again and again of the forged letters to the Marquis de Vaux; then she cried passionately, saying she could never face her guardian any more.

‘Delirious people never lie,’ said the young man to himself one evening, as he stood by the bed, plaintively regarding the pale, pinched face. ‘If she had not been so ill I could not have extracted so much from her by days of cross-questioning. Poor, misguided, miserable child—another instance of the martyrdom of woman to the treachery of man. God help her! God help her!’

Having told this much, Madeline told more. By interrogating her during her saner moments, he learned that her guardian was a Mr. White, who lived in a studio in St. John’s Wood. He risked sending a telegram, and somewhat to his amazement got a reply—

‘God bless you for the information. I am starting for Paris forthwith.’

Having read the telegram, which came to his lodgings, he folded it, put it in his pocket, and walked up to the house where Madeline still lay. Good news awaited him there. The maid’s face was very bright, and the cause of that brightness was that Mademoiselle had awakened, taken some no............