Page:Clermont - Roche (1798, volume 1).djvu/154

 Madeline started, and felt ready to sink with confusion, as she thought, for the first time, of the remarks she had probably excited.

"If that letter requires an answer (cried the Countess), you had better give one directly."

Madeline again glanced at it; she thought, or rather wished to think, that the last lines expressed something like anxiety about her; and, judging of de Sevignie by herself, supposing, like her, he would be delighted to receive even a line from a beloved hand, she determined to answer the letter, and went to a table, on which was an open writing desk, for that purpose.

"What are you going to do, Madeline?" asked the Countess.

"I am going to write, madam," answered Madeline.