thought of betraying the secret she was privy
to, or entertained any hope less humble than to be permitted to stay
unnoticed and unremembered in her own home"----where she "would be
equally uncared for," was probably her heart's muttered conclusion, for
the word _home_ trembled on her tongue, and she burst into an agony
of tears.

Neither the gentle appeal, nor the gush of distressful feeling in which
it terminated, seemed to touch the heartless person it was addressed to,
for there was no softening in the voice with which, as she quitted the
pavilion, she issued her commands, that on her return some half-hour
hence, "the letter should be finished, and not more stupidly than
usual, or it would be _a refaire_." And so departed the imperious
task-mistress, and as her steps died away, and the angry rustling of her
robes, the tinkling of the little fountain was again heard chiming with
the stock-doves' murmurs, and within the temple all was profoundly
still, except at intervals a smothered sob, and then a deep and
heart-relieving sigh, the last audible token of subsiding passion. And
Walter was still rooted, spell-bound--immovable in the same spot. Lost
in a confusion of thoughts, that left him scarcely conscious of his own
identity, of the reality of the scene around him, or of the strange
circumstances in which he found himself so suddenly involved--more than
a few moments it required to restore to him the power of clear
perception and comprehension, but not one, when that was regained, to
decide on the course he should pursue.

Quickly and lightly he stepped round the angle of the building to the
side entrance (like the two others, an open archway), through which his
eye glanced over the whole interior, till it rested on the one living
object of interest. At some little distance, with her back towards him,
sat la petite Madelaine, one elbow resting on the table before her, her
head disconsolately bowed on the supporting hand, which half concealed
her face; the other, with a pen held nervously by the small fingers, lay
idle beside the half-finished letter outspread before her. Once she
languidly raised her head and looked upon it, with a seeming effort
dipped her pen in the ink, and held it a moment suspended over the line
to be filled up. But the task seemed too painful to her, and with a
heavy sigh she suffered her head to drop aside into its former position,
and her hand, still loosely holding the inactive pen, to fa