thought Graham. "That poor
child!--perhaps her father has, after all, met with some
accident!" He left his room and ran quickly downstairs. The
confused murmur of voices grew louder as he approached the
hall, and on turning the last angle of the staircase, he at
once perceived the cause of the disturbance.

A little group was collected in the middle of the hall, the
night porter, one or two of the servants of the hotel, and
some men in blouses, all gathered round a tall prostrate man,
half lying on a bench placed under the centre lamp, half
supported by two men, who had apparently just carried him in.
He was quite insensible, his head had fallen forward on his
breast, and was bound with a handkerchief that had been tied
round to staunch the blood from a wound in his forehead; his
neckcloth was unfastened and his coat thrown back to give him
more air. The little crowd was increasing every moment, as the
news spread through the house; the _porte-cochere_ stood wide
open, and outside in the street a _fiacre_ could be seen,
standing in the moonlight.

"A doctor must be fetched at once," someone was saying, just
as Horace came up and recognized, not without difficulty, in
the pale disfigured form before him, the handsome fair-haired
M. Linders he had met at Chaudfontaine five years before.

"I am a doctor," he said, coming forward. "Perhaps I can be of
some use here."

No one seemed to notice him at first--a lad had already started
in quest of a surgeon, and jumping into the empty _fiacre_ that
had brought the injured man to the hotel, was driving off; but
Madelon turned round at the sound of Graham's voice, and
looked up in his face with a new expression of hope in her
eyes, instead of the blank, bewildered despair with which she
had been gazing at her father and the strange faces around. To
the poor child it seemed as if she had lived through an
unknown space of terror and misery during the few minutes that
had elapsed since from the passage window she had seen the
_fiacre_ stop, and, with the presentiment of evil which had been
haunting her during these last hours of suspense, intensified
to conviction, had flown downstairs only to meet her father's
insensible form as he was carried in. She was kneeling now by
his side, and was chafing one of his cold hands between her
poor little trembling fingers; but when she saw Graham
standing at the edge of the circle she got up, and went to
him.

"Will you come to papa?