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She went, intending to return immediately; but, alas! for human intentions, downstairs she found a commotion that drove M. Linders, M. le Docteur, and everything else out of her head for the time being.
All unconsciously, with that one inadvertent word, M. Linders had raised the first slight barrier between himself and his child, had given the first shock to that confidence which he had fondly hoped was ever to exist undisturbed between them.
I assure you my blood has run cold sometimes when one of those notorious gamblers has been pointed out to me, and I think of the young lives he may have ruined, the young souls he may have tempted to destruction. I myself have known some sad cases I am sure you sympathise with me, Miss Linders?" "Lady Adelaide," said a portly gentleman, coming up, "will you allow me to take you into supper?"
Not the less, however, did he now sit framing a dozen speeches one after the other, dreading the effect of saying too much, and fearing to say too little, till, about an hour after Madelon had fallen asleep, M. Linders at length stirred, opened his eyes, and tried to move. Graham was at his side instantly, and the sick man gazed up at him in silence for a moment.
All day he fed his wrath on the deeds of Scripture warriors, reading aloud from the sacred records, till Patsy Linders exclaimed, enraptured, that "the Bible was a durned good book, by Jiminy!" Little Eliza stayed on, as she often did after the school was dispersed, sure that "her Simon," would find some new and agreeable entertainment for her. "Did your father ever hit you before?"
M. Linders had disappeared, and Graham began to think that he too had had almost enough of it all, and that it would be pleasant to seek peace and coolness in the deserted moonlit courtyard. He was watching for a pause in the waltz that would admit of his crossing the room, when his attention was attracted by the same little girl he had seen that morning in the garden.
Amidst all the miserable failures, and more unworthy successes of a wasted life, M. Linders gained at least one legitimate triumph, when he won his child's undying love and gratitude.
The sudden changes of fortune, from splendour to poverty of the shabbiest description, the reckless, dishonest expenditure, and the endless debts consequent on it; the means doubtful to say the least of them employed by M. Linders for procuring money; the sense of alienation from all that is best, and noblest, and truest in life; all these, which had gone far to make up the sum of her mother's misery, affected our Madelon hardly at all.
I tell you, my sister, it will be the worst work you have yet wrought upon earth, and an evil day for you, if, even when I am in my grave, you try to come between me and my daughter. "Your brother, "Adolphe Linders." "I will sign it," said the sick man, holding out his hand for the pen.
How M. Linders lured these poor birds into the snare, and by what means he plucked them when there, Madelon never knew; all that belonged to the darker side of this character, which she never fully understood, and on which, for her sake, we will not dwell. Most of all, however, did Madelon enjoy being at the German watering-places, for then she went out with her father constantly.
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