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Once more Madeleine's vocal powers were called into requisition. Her voice had never sounded more touchingly, mournfully pathetic, and her listeners hung entranced upon the sounds.
"That you, Archer?" came in what Willis believed he recognized as the captain's voice. "I've had rather a nasty jar, a letter from Madeleine Coburn. Wants Coburn's share in the affair, and hints at knowledge of what we're really up to. Reads as if she was put up to it by someone, probably that Merriman. Hold on a minute and I'll read it to you." Then followed Madeleine's letter.
Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert's voice, and let go of the latch as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the sound of Madeleine's voice she turned around, and from that moment forth she uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but her glance strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to Madeleine in turn, according to which was speaking.
Bertha was still sitting in the carriage beside her cousin. Maurice read anxious expectation, mingled with some faint hope, in Madeleine's countenance. He entered the carriage before he ventured to speak. "Your father, Maurice?" she asked eagerly. "I think he is better; the attack does not appear as severe as the former one must have been." "Did you speak to your grandmother of me?
She took the letter out of his hand, and placing it in Madeleine's, added, "Beg Madame de Fleury to read this letter, and obtain her promise that she will use her influence with the Marquis de Fleury to cause Mr. Gobert, Gobert, that's his name, is it not?" appealing to the count, "to cause Mr. Gobert to vote as herein instructed. See, how well I have explained that matter!
Maurice had ordered a carriage, and they were soon at Madeleine's door. If the countess noticed the draperies which closed off a portion of the house, she gave no sign of doing so. Madeleine was sitting beside Count Tristan, but rose to yield her place to his mother.
A vast, dim church, with long aisles and lofty pillars, which seemed to Madeleine's unpractised eye, fresh from the outer glare, to vanish in infinite mysterious gloom; a blaze of light, at the far-off high altar, with its priests, and incense, and gorgeous garments and tall candles; on every side shrines and tapers, and pictures, awful, agonised, compassionate Saviours, sad, tender Madonnas; a great silent multitude of kneeling people, and, above all, the organ peeling out, wave after wave of sound, which seemed to strike her, surround her, thrill her with a sense of what?
He told the night clerk that Mrs. Talbot had sprained her ankle and fainted, and demanded a pass key if the doctor were out. A bell boy opened the parlor door of the Talbot suite and Colonel Belmont took off Madeleine's hat, placed her on the bed, and then went in search of the doctor. When Madeleine opened her eyes her husband was sitting beside her.
Again that singular expression on his countenance; again that sudden change of color at Madeleine's name; again that involuntary starting from his seat, with a return of the olden habit which placed fragile furniture in danger! Was it the remembrance that Madeleine was lost to them which occasioned M. de Bois's sudden depression?
One irrepressible look of perfect joy from Madeleine's luminous eyes had answered the impassioned gaze of his; one smile of ineffable gratitude played over her sweet lips.
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