clearly the real
character of M. Linders and his associates. Not for the world
would he have touched the child's innocent faith, or revealed
to our simple Madelon that her father was not the perfection
she dreamed him; but he began to understand better the meaning
of M. Linders' last words in his letter to his sister, and
they gained a pathetic significance and force as he learnt to
appreciate the affection that had subsisted between the father
and child, and foresaw too plainly that the time must come
when some rude shock would shatter all Madelon's early
beliefs, and desecrate, as it were, her tenderest memories.
There was something so sad in this certain retribution that
must fall upon her innocent head, as the child of such a
father, something so touching in her anomalous position, left
all friendless and lonely in the midst of such a hard,
relentless world, that Horace felt all his tenderest feelings
stirred with compassion, and he could have wished to have
shielded her for ever from what, he could not but fear, too
surely awaited her sooner or later.

What he could do, he did, and it was more than he thought.
Madelon's sudden devotion to him, of which indeed he knew and
suspected nothing, was of infinite service to her in her first
bitterness of her grief, by giving a new current to her ideas,
whilst it did away with the sense of lonely desolation that
had nearly overpowered her in that first dark hour. In her
ardent little nature there was a necessity for loving, even
stronger perhaps than for being loved, a certain enthusiasm, a
capacity for devotion that had opportunely found an object in
the time of extreme need. For a short hour it had seemed to
her as if life itself had come to an end with her father's
death; the darkness and vagueness of the future had crushed
her down, all the more that she had scarcely comprehended what
was the weight that so oppressed her--and then a moment had
changed it all; a kind word spoken, a kind face looking down
upon her, a friendly hand stretched out, and the vague terrors
had vanished. From that time Horace Graham's presence was
bliss to our Madelon; when she was unhappy, she dried her
tears if he consoled her; if he was out, she sat listening for
his returning footsteps; if he was busy, she was content to
remain for hours with her book on her knee, her chin propped
on her hands, her wistful eyes following his every movement.
Monsieur Horace, as it pleased Madelon to cal