While Gavrolles, in a grotesque attitude, was soliloquising and feeding the swans, Madeline was walking along the pavement of the principal street in Knightsbridge. Her eyes rested upon the gaily decked shop windows and the busy crowd about her, but her thoughts were still with the man whom she had just left. Already she repented of her madness in having defied him. Once or twice she paused with the intention of returning to him and asking for pity, but her resolutions were no sooner made than conquered; to expect mercy from that man was like looking for water to flow from a stone.

She paused and looked blankly in at a shop window; as she did so she felt herself touched lightly and timidly on the arm; and on looking down she found that she had been accosted by a flower girl; a pale, little creature, clad in miserable rags, with a face pinched and pallid from starvation, who timidly held forth a bunch of half-withered violets. Madeline looked down, and her eyes filled with tears; not with sorrow for the child—they were tears of self-pity—for as she pressed some silver into the child’s hand, she thought, ‘What would I give to change places with you to-day?’

Thus recalled to herself, she looked at her watch. It was one o’clock; at two she knew that Miss Forster would expect her to preside at the luncheon table. She determined to hurry home, in order to have a few minutes to compose herself before she was compelled to meet her sister-in-law. She called a hansom, and ordered the man to drive to her house. She stopped him at the street corner, however, and finished her journey on foot.

To her intense relief she was able to gain her room without encountering the lady whose presence seemed to inspire her with so much dread. Having reached the room she shut herself in, sank down on an ottoman, and stared despairingly before her.

‘His wife!’ Could it be that he had spoken truly, that she was really bound by the sacred tie to the man who had done his best to ruin her? Could it be that she had brought shame and disgrace on the man who had been noble enough to shut out the past and to cleanse and purify her with his unstained name? ‘My God,’ she murmured, I think I am accursed. I am like a leper—a vile, unclean thing which contaminates all it touches. I did sin, in a wild, impulsive, girlish way, but why should that sin for ever drag me down? I have repented—I have tried to atone—but for me there seems no mercy.’ Then came the question, What must she do? Return to Monsieur Belleisle, whom the world would doubtless call her lawful husband? Live with him in degradation as great as any she had yet been made to bear?

‘No!’ she cried. ‘I would sooner, as I said to him, destroy my miserable life!’

A gentle tap at the door aroused her. She opened it and admitted her little step-son. It was a custom of the child to call at Madeline’s room, and if he found her go down with her to lunch. He bounded in in his usual light-hearted way, but on seeing her face his hilarity received a check. He took her hand and kissed it, he looked up wistfully into her eyes—

‘Mamma’s headache is no better,’ he said quietly, ‘Why do you think that, darling?’

‘Why?—because you are so white—and because your eyes are all wet. Why have you been crying, mamma; what is there to make you cry?’

‘Ah, what indeed?’ echoed Madeline, seizing up the child and clasping him passionately in her arms. ‘But, remember, my pet, I spoke roughly to you this morning—I have been away from you for hours; perhaps I thought you would not be glad to see me back again.’

‘Ah, no! you would not think that,’ he said, pressing his rosy cheek against her cold, pale face. ‘What would papa do? What should we all do if mamma went away?’

She shuddered, but held the child closely to her as she descended to the dining-room.

The meal was got through in oppressive silence. To be sure, the presence of the servants acted as a barrier to anything like conversation; but every one felt on this occasion that there was something more. Even the child and the very servants seemed oppressed by that indescribable gloom which all felt but none could understand. The luncheon over, Madeline rose with a sigh of infinite relief, and ordered the carriage.

The rain had ceased to fall, but the sky still looked threatening, and the drive did not prove to be a pleasant one. Still it seemed to Madeline that anything would be better than sitting in the house all the afternoon tormented by her own wretched thoughts. Presently, however, as she was putting on her hat, the thought occurred to her that it might be well for her to seek another interview with Belleisle. When, therefore, she descended the stairs she merely kissed the child, ............