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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/17885-h.zip b/17885-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..38b16aa --- /dev/null +++ b/17885-h.zip diff --git a/17885-h/17885-h.htm b/17885-h/17885-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d6af47 --- /dev/null +++ b/17885-h/17885-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10674 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> + <title>Madelon</title> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Madelon, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Madelon + A Novel + +Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17885] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADELON *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + +</pre> + +<h2 align="center">Madelon<br> +A Novel</h2> +<h3 align="center">By<br> +Mary E. Wilkins</h3> +<p align="center">Author of “A Humble Romance”<br> +“Jane Field” etc.</p> +<p align="center">New York<br> +Harper & Brothers Publishers<br> +1896</p> + +<p>Love is the crown, and the crucifixion, of life,<br> +and proves thereby its own divinity.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter I</h4> + +<p>There was a new snow over the village. Indeed, it had ceased to +fall only at sunset, and it was now eight o'clock. It was heaped +apparently with the lightness of foam on the windward sides of the +roads, over the fences and the stone walls, and on the village roofs. +Its weight was evident only on the branches of the evergreen-trees, +which were bent low in their white shagginess, and lost their upward +spring.</p> + +<p>There were evergreens—Norway pines, spruces, and +hemlocks—bordering the road along which Burr Gordon was coming. +Now and then he jostled a low-hanging bough and shook off its load of +snow upon his shoulders. Then he walked nearer the middle of the +street, tramping steadily through the new snow. This was an old road, +but little used of late years, and the forest seemed to be moving +upon it with the unnoted swiftness of a procession endless from the +beginning of the world. In places the branches of the opposite pines +stretched to each other like white-draped arms across the road, and +slender, snow-laden saplings stood out in young crowds well in +advance of the old trees. At times the road was no more than a +cart-path through the forest; but it was a short-cut to the Hautville +place, and that was why Burr Gordon went that way.</p> + +<p>Everything was very still. The new-fallen snow seemed to muffle +silence itself, and do away with that wide susceptibility to sound +which affects one as forcibly as the crashing of cannon.</p> + +<p>There was no whisper of life from the village, which lay a +half-mile back; no roll of wheels, or shout, or peal of bell. Burr +Gordon kept on in utter silence until he came near the Hautville +house. Then he began to hear music: the soaring sweetness of a +soprano voice, the rich undertone of a bass, and the twang of +stringed instruments.</p> + +<p>When he came close to the house the low structure itself, overlaid +with snow, and with snow clinging to its gray-shingled sides like +shreds of wool, seemed to vibrate and pulse and shake, and wax fairly +sonorous with music, like an organ.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon stood still in the road and listened. The constituents +of the concert resolved themselves to his ear. There was a wonderful +soprano, a tenor, a bass, one sweet boy's voice, a bass-viol, and a +violin. They were practising a fugue. The soprano rang out like the +invitation of an angel, <br> “Come, my beloved, +haste away, <br> Cut short the hours of thy delay,” +<br>above all the others—even the shrill boy-treble. Then it +followed, with noblest and sweetest order, the bass in— +<br> “Fly like a youthful hart or roe, +<br> Over the hills where the spices grow.”</p> + +<p>The very breath of the spices of Arabia seemed borne into the +young man's senses by that voice. He saw in vision the blue tops of +those delectable hills where the myrtle and the cassia grew; he felt +within his limbs the ardent impulse of the hart or roe. He stood with +his head bent, listening, until the music ceased; the blue hills sank +suddenly into the land of the past, and all the spice-plants withered +away.</p> + +<p>There was but a few minutes' interval; then there was a +chorus— <br> “Strike the Timbrel.”</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon, listening, heard in that only the great soprano, and +it was to him like the voice of Miriam of old, summoning him to +battle and glory.</p> + +<p>But when that music ceased he did not wait any longer nor enter +the house, but stole away silently. This time he travelled the main +road, which intersected the old one at the Hautville house. The +village lights shone before him all the way. He was half-way to the +village when he met his cousin, Lot Gordon. He knew he was coming +through the pale darkness of the night some time before he was +actually in sight by his cough. Lot Gordon had had for years a sharp +cough which afflicted him particularly when he walked abroad in night +air. It carried as far as the yelp of a dog; when Burr first heard it +he stopped short, and looked irresolutely at the thicket beside the +road. He had a half-impulse to slink in there among the snowy bushes +and hide until his cousin passed by. Then he shook his head angrily +and kept on.</p> + +<p>However, when the two men drew near each other Burr kept well to +his side of the road and strode on rapidly, hoping his cousin might +not recognize him. But Lot, with a hoarse laugh and another cough, +swerved after him and jostled him roughly.</p> + +<p>“Can't cheat me, Burr Gordon,” said he.</p> + +<p>“I don't want to cheat you,” returned Burr, in a surly +tone.</p> + +<p>“You can't if you do. Set me down anywhere in the woods when +there's a wind, and I'll tell ye what the trees are if it's so dark +you can't see a leaf by the way the boughs blow. The maples strike +out stiff like dead men's arms, and the elms lash like live snakes, +and the pines stir all together like women. I can tell the trees no +matter how dark 'tis by the way they move, and I can tell a Gordon by +the swing of his shoulders, no matter how fast he slinks by on the +other side in the shadow. You don't set much by me, Burr, and I don't +set any too much by you, but we've got to swing our shoulders one +way, whether we will or no, because our father and our grandfather +did before us. Good Lord, aren't men in leading-strings, no matter +how high they kick!”</p> + +<p>“I can't stand here in the snow talking,” said Burr, +and he tried to push past. But the other man stood before him with +another laugh and cough. “You aren't talking, Burr; I'm the one +that's talking, and I've heard stuff that was worse to listen to. +You'd better stand still.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I'm going,” said Burr, with a thrust of +his elbow in his cousin's side.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Lot, “go if you want to, or go if +you don't want to. That last is what you're doing, Burr +Gordon.”</p> + +<p>“What do mean by that?”</p> + +<p>“You're going to see Dorothy Fair when you want to see +Madelon Hautville, because you don't want to do what you want to. +Well, go on. I'm going to see Madelon and hear her sing. I've given +up trying to work against my own motions. It's no use; when you think +you've done it, you haven't. You never can get out of this one gait +that you were born to except in your own looking-glass. Go and court +Dorothy Fair, and in spite of yourself you'll kiss the other girl +when you're kissing her. Well, I sha'n't cheat Madelon Hautville that +way.”</p> + +<p>“You know—she will not—you know Madelon +Hautville never—” stammered Burr Gordon, furiously.</p> + +<p>Lot laughed again. “You think she sets so much by you she'll +never kiss me,” said he. “Don't be too sure, Burr. +Nature's nature, and the best of us come under it. Madelon +Hautville's got her place, like all the rest. There isn't a rose +that's too good to take a bee in. Go do your own courting, and trust +me to do mine. Courting's in our blood—I sha'n't disgrace the +family.”</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon went past his cousin with a smothered ejaculation. Lot +laughed again, and tramped, coughing, away to the Hautville house. +When he drew near the house the chorus within were still practising +“Strike the Timbrel.” When he opened the door and +entered there was no cessation in the music, but suddenly the girl's +voice seemed to gain new impulse and hurl itself in his face like a +war-trumpet.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon kept on to Minister Jonathan Fair's great house in the +village, next the tavern. There was a light in the north parlor, and +he knew Dorothy was expecting him. He raised the knocker, and knew +when it fell that a girl's heart within responded to it with a wild +beat.</p> + +<p>He waited until there was a heavy shuffle of feet in the hall and +the door opened, and Minister Fair's black servant-woman stood there +flaring a candle before his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Who be you?” said she, in her rich drone, which had +yet a twang of hostility in it.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon ignored her question. “Is Miss Dorothy at +home?” said he.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she's at home, I s'pose,” muttered the woman, +grudgingly. She distrusted this young man as a suitor for Dorothy. +The girl's mother had long been dead, and this old dark woman, whose +very thoughts seemed to the village people to move on barbarian +pivots of their own, had a jealous guardianship of her which exceeded +that of her father.</p> + +<p>Now she filled up the doorway before Burr Gordon with her +majestic, palpitating bulk, her great black face stiffened back with +obstinacy. It was said that she had been born in Africa, and had been +a princess in her own country; and, indeed, she bore herself like one +now, and held up her orange-turbaned head as if it were crowned, and +bore her candle like a flaming sceptre which brought out strange +gleams of color and metallic lustres from her garments and the rows +of beads on her black neck.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon made an impatient yet deferential motion to enter. +“I would like to see her a few minutes if she is at +home,” said he.</p> + +<p>The woman muttered something which might have been in her native +dialect, the words were so rolled into each other under her thick +tongue. Her small, sharp eyes were fairly malicious upon the young +man's handsome face.</p> + +<p>“I don't know what you say,” he said, half angrily. +“Can't I see her?”</p> + +<p>“She's in the north parlor, I s'pose,” muttered the +black woman; and she stood aside and let Burr Gordon pass in, +following him with her hostile eyes as he opened the north-parlor +door. Dorothy Fair sat with her embroidery-work at the mahogany +table, whereon a whole branch of candles burned in silver sticks. She +was working a muslin collar for her own adornment, and she set a fine +stitch in a sprig before she rose up, either to prove her +self-command to herself or to Burr Gordon. She had also held herself +quiet during the delay in the hall.</p> + +<p>Dorothy Fair came of a gentle and self-controlled race of New +England ministers; but now her young heart carried her away. She +stood up; her embroidery, with her scissors and bodkin, slid to the +ground, and she came forward with her fair curls dropping around a +face pink and smiling openly with love like a child's, and was, +seemingly half of her own accord, in Burr Gordon's arms with her lips +meeting his; and then they sat down side by side on the north-parlor +sofa.</p> + +<p>Dorothy Fair's face was very sweet to see; her blue eyes and her +soft lips were innocent and fond under her lover's gaze. Her little +white hand clung to his like a baby's. There was a sweet hollow under +her chin, above her fine lace collar. Her soft, fair curls smelt in +his face of roses and lavender. The utter daintiness of this maiden +Dorothy Fair was a separate charm and a fascination full of subtle +and innocent earthiness to the senses of a lover. She appealed to his +selfish delight like a sweet-scented flower, like a pink or a +rose.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon had been only half right in his analysis of his +cousin's wooing. When Burr sat with his arm around this maiden's +waist, with his face bent tenderly down towards the soft, pink cheek +on his shoulder, this sweetness near at hand was wellnigh sufficient +for him, and Dorothy's shy murmur of love in his ear overcame largely +the memory of the other's wonderful song. A bee cares only for the +honey and not for the flower, therefore one flower is as dear to him +as another; and so it is with many a lover when he gets fairly to +tasting love. The memory of the rose before fades, even if he never +wore it. Then, too, Burr Gordon had a sense of approbation from his +shrewder self which sustained him. This Dorothy Fair, the minister's +daughter, of gentle New England lineage, the descendant of +college-learned men, and of women who had held themselves with a fine +dignity and mild reserve in the village society, the sole heiress of +what seemed a goodly property to the simple needs of the day, +appealed to his reason as well as his heart. He remained until near +midnight, while the old black woman crouched with the patience of a +watching animal outside the door, and he wooed Dorothy Fair with +ardor and delight, although her softly affectionate kisses were to +Madelon Hautville's as the fall of snow-flakes to drops of warm +honey. And although after he had gone home and fallen asleep his +dreams were mixed, still when he waked with the image of Madelon +between himself and Dorothy, because sleep had set his heart free, it +was still with that sense of approbation.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville was not considered a fair match for a young man +who had claims to ambition. The Hautville family held a peculiar +place in public estimation. They belonged not to any defined stratum +of the village society, but formed rather a side ledge, a cropping, +of quite another kind, at which people looked askance. One reason +undoubtedly was the mixture of foreign blood which their name +denoted. Anything of alien race was looked upon with a mixture of +fear and aversion in this village of people whose blood had flowed in +one course for generations. The Hautvilles were said to have French +and Indian blood yet, in strong measure, in their veins; it was +certain that they had both, although it was fairly back in history +since the first Hautville, who, report said, was of a noble French +family, had espoused an Iroquois Indian girl. The sturdy males of the +family had handed down the name and the characteristics of the races +through years of intermarriage with the English settlers. All the +Hautvilles—the father, the four sons, and the +daughter—were tall and dark, and straight as arrows, and they +all had wondrous grace of manner, which abashed and half offended, +while it charmed, the stiff village people. Not a young man in the +village, no matter how finely attired in city-made clothing, had the +courtly air of these Hautville sons, in their rude, half-woodland +garb; not a girl, not even Dorothy Fair, could wear a gown of brocade +with the grace, inherited from a far-away French grandmother, with +which Madelon Hautville wore indigo cotton.</p> + +<p>Moreover, the whole family was as musical as a band of +troubadours, and while that brought them into constant requisition +and gave them an importance in the town, it yet caused them to be +held with a certain cheapness. Music as an end of existence and means +of livelihood was lightly estimated by the followers of the learned +professions, the wielders of weighty doctrines and drugs, and also by +the tillers of the stern New England soil. The Hautvilles, furnishing +the music in church, and for dances and funerals, were regarded much +in the light of mountebanks, and jugglers with sweet sounds. People +wondered that Lot and Burr Gordon should go to their house so much. +Not a week all winter but Burr had been there once or twice, and Lot +had been there nearly every night when his cousin was not. And he +stayed late also—this night he outstayed Burr at Dorothy +Fair's. The music was kept up until a late hour, for Madelon proposed +tune after tune with nervous ardor when her father and brothers +seemed to flag. Nobody paid much attention to Lot; he was too +constant a visitor. He settled into a favorite chair of his near the +fire, and listened with the firelight playing over his delicate, +peaked face. Now and then he coughed.</p> + +<p>Old David Hautville, the father, stood out in front of the hearth +by his great bass-viol, leaning fondly over it like a lover over his +mistress. David Hautville was a great, spare man—a body of +muscles and sinews under dry, brown flesh, like an old oak-tree. His +long, white mustache curved towards his ears with sharp sweeps, like +doves' wings. His thick, white brows met over his keen, black eyes. +He kept time with his head, jerking it impatiently now and then, when +some one lagged or sped ahead in the musical race.</p> + +<p>Three of the Hautville sons were men grown. One, Louis, laid his +dark, smooth cheek caressingly against the violin which he played. +Eugene sang the sonorous tenor, and Abner the bass, like an organ. +The youngest son, Richard, small and slender as a girl, so like +Madelon that he might have been taken for her had he been dressed in +feminine gear, lifted his eager face at her side and raised his +piercing, sweet treble, which seemed to pass beyond hearing into +fancy. Madelon, her brown throat swelling above her lace tucker, like +a bird's, stood in the midst of the men, and sang and sang, and her +wonderful soprano flowed through the harmony like a river of honey; +and yet now and then it came with a sudden fierce impetus, as if she +would force some enemy to bay with music. Madelon was slender, but +full of curves which were like the soft breast of a bird before an +enemy. Sometimes as she sang she flung out her slender hands with a +nervous gesture which had hostility in it. Truth was that she hated +Lot Gordon both on his own account and because he came instead of his +cousin Burr. She had expected Burr that night; she had taken his +cousin's hand on the doorlatch for his. He had not been to see her +for three weeks, and her heart was breaking as she sang. Any face +which had appeared to her instead of his in the doorway that night +would have been to her as the face of a bitter enemy or a black +providence, but Lot Gordon was in himself hateful to her. She knew, +too, by a curious revulsion of all her senses from unwelcome desire, +that he loved her, and the love of any man except Burr Gordon was to +her like a serpent.</p> + +<p>She would not look at him, but somehow she knew that his eyes were +upon her, and that they were full of love and malice, and she knew +not which she dreaded more. She resolved that he should not have a +word with her that night if she could help it, and so she urged on +her father and her brothers with new tunes until they would have no +more, and went off to bed—all except the boy Richard. She +whispered in his ear, and he stayed behind with her while she mixed +some bread and set it for rising on the hearth.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon sat watching her. There was a hungry look in his hollow +blue eyes. Now and then he coughed painfully, and clapped his hand to +his chest with an impatient movement.</p> + +<p>“Well, whether I ever get to heaven or not, I've heard +music,” he said, when she passed him with the bread-bowl on her +hip and her soft arm curved around it. He reached out his slender +hand and caught hold of her dress-skirt; she jerked away with a +haughty motion, and set the bowl on the hearth. “You'd better +rake down the fire now, Richard,” said she.</p> + +<p>The boy jostled Lot roughly as he passed around him to get the +fire-shovel. Lot looked at the clock, and the hand was near twelve. +He arose slowly.</p> + +<p>“I met Burr on his way down to Parson Fair's,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Madelon covered up the bread closely with a linen towel. There was +a surging in her ears, as if misery itself had a veritable sound, and +her face was as white as the ashes on the hearth, but she kept it +turned away from Lot.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said he, in his husky drawl, “a rose +isn't a rose to a bee, she's only a honey-pot; and she's only one out +of a shelfful to him; she can't complain, it's what she was born to. +If she finds any fault it's got to be with creation, and what's one +rose to face creation? There's nothing to do but to make the best of +it. Good-night, Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” said Madelon. The color had come back to +her cheeks, and she looked back at him proudly, standing beside her +bread-bowl on the hearth.</p> + +<p>Lot passed out, turning his delicate face over his shoulder with a +subtle smile as he went. Richard clapped the door to after him with a +jar that shook the house, and shot the bolt viciously. “I'll +get my gun and follow him if you say so, and then I'll find Burr +Gordon,” he said, turning a furious face to his sister.</p> + +<p>“Would you make me a laughing-stock to the whole +town?” said she. “Rake down the fire; it's time to go to +bed.”</p> + +<p>She looked as proudly at her brother as she had done at Lot. The +resemblance between the two faces faded a little as they confronted +each other. A virile quality in the boy's anger made the difference +of sex more apparent. He looked at her, holding his wrath, as it +were, like a two-edged sword which must smite some one. “If I +thought you cared about that man that has jilted you—and I've +heard the talk about it,” said he, “I'd feel like +shooting <em>you</em>.”</p> + +<p>“You needn't shoot,” returned Madelon.</p> + +<p>The boy looked at her as angrily as if she were Burr Gordon. +Suddenly her mouth quivered a little and her eyes fell. The boy flung +both his arms around her. “I don't care,” he said, +brokenly, in his sweet treble—“I don't care, you're the +handsomest girl in the town, and the best and the smartest, and not +one can sing like you, and I'll kill any man that treats you +ill—I will, I will!” He was sobbing on his sister's +shoulder; she stood still, looking over his dark head at the +snow-hung window and the night outside. Her lips and eyes were quite +steady now; she had recovered self-control when her brother's failed +him, as if by some curious mental seesaw.</p> + +<p>“No man can treat me ill unless I take it ill,” said +she, “and that I'll do for no man. There's no killing to be +done, and if there were I'd do it myself and ask nobody. Come, +Richard, let me go; I'm going to bed.” She gave the boy's head +a firm pat. “There's a turnover in the pantry, under a bowl on +the lowermost shelf,” said she; and she laughed in his +passionate, flushed face when he raised it.</p> + +<p>“I don't care, I will!” he cried.</p> + +<p>“Go and get your turnover; I saved it for you,” said +she, with a push.</p> + +<p>Neither of them dreamed that Lot Gordon had been watching them, +standing in a snow-drift under the south window, his eyes peering +over the sill, his forehead wet with a snow-wreath, stifling back his +cough. When at last the candlelight went out in the great kitchen he +crept stiffly and wearily through the snow.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter II</h4> + +<p>Lot Gordon lived about half a mile away in the old Gordon +homestead alone, except for an old servant-woman and her husband, who +managed his house for him and took care of the farm. Lot himself did +not work in the common acceptance of the term. His father had left +him quite a property, and he did not need to toil for his bread. +People called him lazy. He owned nearly as many books as the parson +and the lawyer. He often read all night it was said, and he roamed +the woods in all seasons. Under low-hanging winter boughs and summer +arches did Lot Gordon pry and slink and lie in wait, his fine, sharp +face peering through snowy tunnels or white spring thickets like a +white fox, hungrily intent upon the secrets of nature.</p> + +<p>There was a deep mystery in this to the village people. They could +not fathom the reason for a man's haunting wild places like a wild +animal unless he hunted and trapped like the Hautville sons. They +were suspicious of dark motives, upon which they exercised their +imaginations.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon's talk, moreover, was an enigma to them. He was no +favorite, and only his goodly property tempered his ill repute. +People could not help identifying him, in a measure, with his noble +old house, with the stately pillared portico, with his silver-plate +and damask and mahogany, which his great-grandfather had brought from +the old country, with his fine fields and his money in the bank. He +held, moreover, a large mortgage on the house opposite, where Burr +Gordon lived with his mother. Burr's father and Lot's, although sons +of one shrewd father, had been of very different financial abilities. +Lot's father kept his property intact, never wasting, but adding from +others' waste. Burr's plunged into speculation, built a new house, +for which he could not pay, married a wife who was not thrifty, and +when his father died had anticipated the larger portion of his +birthright. So Lot's father succeeded to nearly all the family +estates, and in time absorbed the rest. Lot, at his father's death, +had inherited the mortgage upon the estate of Burr and his mother. +Burr's father had died some time before. Lot was rumored to be +harder, in the matter of exacting heavy interest, than his father had +been. It was said that Burr was far behind in his payments, and that +Lot would foreclose. Burr had a better head than his father's, but he +had terrible odds against him. There was only one chance for his +release from difficulty, people thought. All the property, by a +provision in the grandfather's will, was to fall to him if Lot died +unmarried. Lot was twenty years older than Burr, and he coughed.</p> + +<p>“Burr Gordon ain't makin' out much now,” people said; +“the paint's all off his house and his land's run down, but +there's dead men's shoes with gold buckles in the path ahead of +him.”</p> + +<p>Burr thought of it sometimes, although he turned his face from the +thought, and Lot considered it when he took the mortgage note out of +his desk and scored another installment of unpaid interest on it. +“If a man's only his own debtor he won't be very hard on +himself,” he said aloud, and laughed. Old Margaret Bean, his +housekeeper, looked at him over her spectacles, but she did not know +what he meant. She prepared many a valuable remedy for his cough from +herbs and roots, but Lot would never taste them, and she made her old +husband swallow them all as preventatives of colds, that they should +not be wasted. Lot was coughing harder lately. To-night, after he +returned from the Hautvilles', he had one paroxysm after another. He +did not go to bed, but huddled over the fire wrapped in a shawl, with +a leather-bound book on his knees, all night, holding to his chest +when he coughed, then turning to his book again.</p> + +<p>When daylight was fully in the room he blew out the candle, and +went over to the window and looked out across the road at the house +opposite, which had always been called the “new house” to +distinguish it from the old Gordon homestead. It was not so solid and +noble as the other, but it had sundry little touches of later times, +which his father had always characterized as wasteful follies. For +one thing, it was elevated ostentatiously far above the road-level +upon terraces surmounted by a flight of stone steps. It fairly looked +down, like any spirit of a younger age, upon the older house, which +might have been regarded in a way as its progenitor.</p> + +<p>The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney in the ell. Lot +Gordon looked across. Burr was clearing the snow from the stone steps +over the terraces. There had never been any lack of energy and +industry in Burr to account for his flagging fortunes. He arose +betimes every morning. Lot, standing well behind the dimity curtain, +watched him flinging the snow aside like spray, his handsome face +glowing like a rose.</p> + +<p>“I suppose he is going to the party at the tavern +to-night,” Lot murmured. Suddenly his face took on a piteous, +wistful look like a woman's; tears stood in his blue eyes. He doubled +over with a violent fit of coughing, then went back to his chair and +his book.</p> + +<p>This party had been the talk of the village for several weeks. It +was to be an unusually large one. People were coming from all the +towns roundabout. Burr Gordon had been one of the ringleaders of the +enterprise. All day long he worked over the preparations, dragging +out evergreen garlands from under the snow in the woods, cutting +hemlock boughs, and trimming the ball-room in the tavern. Towards +night he heard a piece of news which threatened to bring everything +to a standstill. The dusk was thickening fast; Burr and the two young +men who were working with him were hurrying to finish the decorations +before candlelight when Richard Hautville came in. Burr started when +he saw him. He looked so like his sister in the dim light that he +thought for a moment she was there.</p> + +<p>Richard did not notice him at all. He hustled by him roughly and +approached the other two young men. “Louis can't fiddle +to-night,” he announced, curtly. The young men stared at him in +dismay.</p> + +<p>“What's the trouble?” asked Burr.</p> + +<p>“He's hurt his arm,” replied Richard; but he still +addressed the other two, and made as if he were not answering +Burr.</p> + +<p>“Broke it?” asked one of the others.</p> + +<p>“No; sprained it. He was clearing the snow off the barn roof +and the ladder fell. It's all black-and-blue, and he can't lift it +enough to fiddle to-night.”</p> + +<p>The three young men looked at each other.</p> + +<p>“What's going to be done?” said one.</p> + +<p>“I don't know,” said Burr. “There's Davy +Barrett, over to the Four Corners—I suppose we might get him if +we sent right over.”</p> + +<p>“You can't get him,” said Richard Hautville, still +addressing the other two, as if they had spoken. “Louis said +you couldn't. His wife's got the typhus-fever, and he's up nights +watching with her—won't let anybody else. You can't get +him.”</p> + +<p>“We can't have a ball without a fiddler,” one young +man said, soberly.</p> + +<p>“Maybe Madelon would lilt for the dancing,” Burr +Gordon said; and then he colored furiously, as if he had startled +himself in saying it.</p> + +<p>The boy turned on him. “Maybe you think my sister will lilt +for you to dance, Burr Gordon!” cried he, and his face blazed +white in Burr's eyes, and he shook his slender brown fist.</p> + +<p>“Nobody wants your sister to lilt if she isn't willing +to,” Burr returned, in a hard voice; and he snatched up a +hemlock bough, and went away with it to the other side of the +ball-room.</p> + +<p>“My sister won't lilt for you, and you can have your ball +the best way you can!” shouted the boy, his angry eyes +following Burr. Then he went out of the ball-room with a leap, and +slammed the door so that the tavern trembled.</p> + +<p>The young men chuckled. “Injun blood is up,” said +one.</p> + +<p>“You'll be scalped, Burr,” called the other.</p> + +<p>Burr came over to them with an angry stride. “Oh, quit +fooling!” said he, impatiently. “What's going to be +done?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing can be done; we shall have to give the ball up for +to-night unless you can get Madelon Hautville to lilt for the +dancing,” returned one, and the other nodded assent. +“That's the state of the case,” said he.</p> + +<p>Burr scraped a foot impatiently on the waxed floor. “Go and +ask her yourself, Daniel Plympton,” said he. “I don't see +why it has all got to come on to me.”</p> + +<p>“Can't,” replied Daniel Plympton, with a laugh. +“Remember the falling out Eugene and I had at the +house-raising? I ain't going to his house to ask his sister to lilt +for my dancing.”</p> + +<p>“You, then, Abner Little,” said Burr, peremptorily, to +the other young man. He had a fair, nervous face, and he was screwing +his forehead anxiously over the situation.</p> + +<p>“Can't nohow, Burr,” said he. “I've got to drive +four miles home, and milk, and take care of the horses, and shave, +and get dressed, and then drive another three miles for my girl. I'm +going to take one of the Morse girls, over at Summer Falls. I haven't +got time to go down to the Hautvilles', and that's the truth, +Burr.”</p> + +<p>“You'll have to go yourself, Burr,” said Daniel +Plympton, with a half-laugh.</p> + +<p>“I can't,” said Burr, “and I won't, if we give +the ball up.”</p> + +<p>“What will all the out-of-town folks say?”</p> + +<p>“I don't care what they say—they can play +forfeits.”</p> + +<p>“Forfeits!” returned Daniel Plympton with scorn. +“What's kissing to dancing?” Daniel Plympton was +somewhat stout but curiously light of foot, and accounted the best +dancer in town. As he spoke he sprang up on his toes as if he had +winged heels. “Forfeits!” repeated he, jerking his great +flaxen head.</p> + +<p>“Well, you can go yourself, then, and ask Madelon Hautville +to lilt,” said Burr.</p> + +<p>“I tell you I can't, Burr—I ain't mean +enough.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I won't, and that's flat.”</p> + +<p>“I've got to go home, anyway,” said Abner Little. +“What I want to know is—is there going to be any +ball?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, get your girl anyhow, Ab,” returned Daniel, with +a great laugh; “there'll be something. If there ain't dancing, +there'll be kissing, and that'll suit her just as well. And if she +can't get enough here, why there's the ride home. Lord, I'd get a +girl nearer home! You've got to drive six miles out of your way to +Summer Falls and back. As for me, the quicker I get a girl off my +hands the better. I'm going to take Nancy Blake because she lives +next door to the tavern. Go along with ye, Ab; Burr and I will settle +it some way.”</p> + +<p>But it looked for some time after Abner Little left as if there +would be no ball that night. They could not have any dance unless +Madelon Hautville would sing for it, and both Daniel Plympton and +Burr Gordon were determined not to ask her.</p> + +<p>At half-past seven Madelon was all dressed for the ball, and +neither of them had come to see her about it. She and all her +brothers except Louis were going. They wondered who would play for +the dancing, but supposed some arrangements would be made. +“Burr Gordon will put it through somehow,” said Louis. +“Maybe he'll ride over to Farnham Hollow and get Luke Corliss +to fiddle.” Louis sat discontentedly by the fire, with his arm +soaking in cider-brandy and wormwood.</p> + +<p>“Farnham Hollow is ten miles away,” said Richard.</p> + +<p>“His horse is fast; he'd get him here by eight +o'clock,” returned Louis.</p> + +<p>Madelon was radiant. In spite of herself, she was full of hope in +going to the ball. She knew Dorothy Fair would not be present, since +her father was the orthodox parson, and she had seen her own face in +her glass. With her rival away, what could not a face like that do +with a heart that leaned towards it of its own nature? Madelon dimly +felt that Burr Gordon had to resist himself as well as her in this +matter. She had tended a monthly rose in the south window all winter, +and she wore two red roses in her black braids. Her cheeks and her +lips were fuller of warm red life than the roses. She lowered her +black eyes before her father and her brothers, for there was a light +in them which she could not subdue, which belonged to Burr Gordon +only. No costly finery had Madelon Hautville, but she had done some +cunning needle-work on an old black-satin gown of her mother's, and +it was fitted as softly over her sweet curves as a leaf over a bud. A +long garland of flowers after her own design had she wrought in +bright-colored silks around the petticoat, and there were knots of +red ribbon to fasten the loopings here and there. And she wore +another red rose in her lace tucker against her soft brown bosom. +Madelon wore, too, trim black-silk stockings with red clocks over her +slender ankles, and little black-satin shoes with steel buckles and +red rosettes. Every one of her brothers, except the youngest, +Richard, must needs compare her in his own heart, to her +disparagement, with some maid not his sister, but they all viewed her +with pride. Old David Hautville's eyes, under his thick, white brows, +followed her and dwelt upon her as she moved around the kitchen.</p> + +<p>Madelon had got out her red cloak and her silk hood, and it was +nearly time to start when there was a knock on the door. Madelon's +face was pale in a second, then red again. She pushed Richard aside. +“I'll go to the door,” said she.</p> + +<p>She knew somehow that it was Burr Gordon, and when she opened the +door he stood there. He looked curiously embarrassed, but she did not +notice that. His mere presence for the moment seemed to fill all her +comprehension. She had no eye for shades of expression.</p> + +<p>“Come in,” said she, all blushing and trembling before +him, and yet with a certain dignity which never quite deserted +her.</p> + +<p>“Can I see you a minute?” Burr said, awkwardly.</p> + +<p>“Come this way.”</p> + +<p>Madelon led the way into the best room, where there was no fire. +It had not been warmed all winter, except on nights when Burr had +come courting her. In the midst of it the great curtained bedstead +reared itself, holding its feather-bed like a drift of snow. The +floor was sanded in a fine, small pattern, there were white tasselled +curtains at the windows, and there was a tall chest of drawers that +reached the ceiling. The room was just as Madelon's mother, who had +been one of the village girls, had left it.</p> + +<p>Madelon glanced at the hearth, where she had laid the wood +symmetrically—all ready to be kindled at a moment's notice +should Burr come. “I'll light the fire,” said she, in a +trembling voice.</p> + +<p>“No, I can't stop,” returned the young man. +“I've got to go right up to the tavern. Look here, +Madelon—”</p> + +<p>“Well?” she murmured, trembling.</p> + +<p>“I want to know if—look here, won't you lilt for the +dancing to-night, Madelon?”</p> + +<p>Madelon's face changed. “That's all he came for,” she +thought. She turned away from him. “You'd better get Luke +Corliss to fiddle,” she said, coldly.</p> + +<p>“We can't. I started to go over there, and I met a man that +lives next door to him, and he said it was no use, for Luke had gone +down to Winfield to fiddle at a ball there.”</p> + +<p>“I don't feel like lilting to-night,” said +Madelon.</p> + +<p>The young man colored. “Well,” said he, in a stiff, +embarrassed voice, and he turned towards the door, “we won't +have any ball to-night, that's all,” he added.</p> + +<p>“Well, you can go visiting instead,” returned Madelon, +suddenly.</p> + +<p>“I'd rather go a-visiting—here!” cried Burr, +with a quick fervor, and he turned back and came close to her.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him sharply, steeling her heart against his +tender tone, but he met her gaze with passionate eyes.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, you look so beautiful to-night!” he +whispered, hoarsely. Her eyes fell before his. She made, whether she +would or not, a motion towards him, and he put his arms around her. +They kissed again and again, lingering upon each kiss as if it were a +foothold in heaven. A great rapture of faith in her lover and his +love came over Madelon. She said to herself that they had +lied—they had all lied! Burr had never courted Dorothy Fair. +She believed, with her whole heart and soul, that he loved her and +her alone. And, indeed, she was at that time, at that minute, right +and not deceived; for Burr Gordon was one of those who can encompass +love in one tense only, and that the present; and they who love only +in the present, hampered by no memories and no dreams, yield out +love's sweetness fully. All Burr Gordon's soul was in his kisses and +his fond eyes, and her own crept out to meet it with perfect +faith.</p> + +<p>“I will lilt for the dancing,” she whispered.</p> + +<p>The Hautvilles were going to the ball on their wood-sled, drawn by +oxen. David was to drive them, and take the team home. It was already +before the door when Burr came out, and Madelon asked him to ride +with them, but he refused. “I've got to go home first,” +he said, and plunged off quickly down the old road, the short-cut to +his house.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville, in her red cloak and her great silk hood, stood +in the midst of her brothers on the wood-sled, and the oxen drew them +ponderously to the ball. The tavern was all alight. Many other sleds +were drawn up before the door; indeed, certain of the young men who +had not their especial sweethearts took their ox-sleds and went from +door to door collecting the young women. Many a jingling load slipped +along the snowy road to the tavern that night, and the ball-room +filled rapidly.</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock the ball opened. Madelon stood up in the little +gallery allotted to the violins and lilted, and the march began. Two +and two, the young men and the girls swung around the room. Madelon +lilted with her eyes upon the moving throng, gay as a garden in a +wind; and suddenly her heart stood still, although she lilted on. +Down on the floor below Burr Gordon led the march, with Dorothy Fair +on his arm. Dorothy Fair, waving a great painted fan with the +tremulous motion of a butterfly's wing, with her blue brocade +petticoat tilting airily as she moved, like an inverted bell-flower, +with a locket set in brilliants flashing on her white neck, with her +pink-and-white face smiling out with gentle gayety from her fair +curls, stepped delicately, pointing out her blue satin toes, around +the ball-room, with one little white hand on Burr Gordon's arm.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter III</h4> + +<p>Suddenly all Madelon's beauty was cheapened in her own eyes. She +saw herself swart and harsh-faced as some old savage squaw beside +this fair angel. She turned on herself as well as on her recreant +lover with rage and disdain—and all the time she lilted without +one break.</p> + +<p>The ball swung on and on, and Madelon, up in the musicians' +gallery, sang the old country-dances in the curious dissyllabic +fashion termed lilting. It never occurred to her to wonder how it was +that Dorothy Fair, the daughter of the orthodox minister, should be +at the ball—she who had been brought up to believe in the +sinful and hellward tendencies of the dance. Madelon only grasped the +fact that she was there with Burr; but others wondered, and the +surprise had been great when Dorothy in her blue brocade had appeared +in the ball-room.</p> + +<p>This had been largely of late years a liberal and Unitarian +village, but Parson Fair had always held stanchly to his stern +orthodox tenets, and promulgated them undiluted before his thinning +congregations and in his own household. Dorothy could not only not +play cards or dance, but she could not be present at a party where +the cards were produced or the fiddle played. There was, indeed, a +rumor that she had learned to dance when she was in Boston at school, +but no one knew for certain.</p> + +<p>Dorothy Fair was advancing daintily between the two long lines, +holding up her blue brocade to clear her blue-satin shoes, to meet +the young man from the opposite corner, flinging out gayly towards +her, when suddenly, with no warning whatever, a great dark woman sped +after her through the dance, like a wild animal of her native woods. +She reached out her black hand and caught Dorothy by the white, +lace-draped arm, and she whispered loud in her ear.</p> + +<p>The people near, finding it hard to understand the African woman's +thick tongue, could not exactly vouch for the words, but the purport +of her hurried speech they did not mistake. Parson Fair had +discovered Mistress Dorothy's absence, and home she must hasten at +once. It was evident enough to everybody that staid and decorous +Dorothy had run away to the ball with Burr Gordon, and a smothered +titter ran down the files of the Virginia reel.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon cast a fierce glance around; then he sprang to +Dorothy's side, and she looked palely and piteously up at him.</p> + +<p>He pulled her hand through his arm and led her out of the +ball-room, with the black woman following sulkily, muttering to +herself. Burr bent closely down over Dorothy's drooping head as they +passed out of the door. “Don't be frightened, +sweetheart,” whispered he. Madelon saw him as she lilted, and +it seemed to her that she heard what he said.</p> + +<p>It was not long after when she felt a touch on her shoulder as she +sat resting between the dances, gazing with her proud, bright eyes +down at the merry, chattering throng below. She turned, and her +brother Richard stood there with a strange young man, and Richard +held Louis's fiddle on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>“This is Mr. Otis, Madelon,” said Richard, “and +he came up from Kingston to the ball, and he can fiddle as well as +Louis, and he said 'twas a shame you should lilt all night and not +have a chance to dance yourself; and so I ran home and got Louis's +fiddle, and there are plenty down there to jump at the chance of you +for a partner—and—” the boy leaned forward and +whispered in his sister's ear: “Burr Gordon's gone—and +Dorothy Fair.”</p> + +<p>Madelon turned her beautiful, proud face towards the stranger, and +did not notice Richard at all. “Thank you, sir,” said +she, inclining her long neck; “but I care not to +dance—I'd as lief lilt.”</p> + +<p>“But,” said the strange young man, pressing forward +impetuously and gazing into her black eyes, “you look tired; +'tis a shame to work you so.”</p> + +<p>“I rest between the dances, and I am not tired,” said +Madelon, coldly.</p> + +<p>“I beg you to let me fiddle for the rest of the ball,” +pleaded the young man. “Let me fiddle while you dance; you may +be sure I'll fiddle my best for you.”</p> + +<p>A tender note came into his voice, and, curiously enough, Madelon +did not resent it, although she had never seen him before and he had +no right. She looked up in his bright fair face with sudden +hesitation, and his blue eyes bent half humorously, half lovingly +upon her. She had a fierce desire to get away from this place, out +into the night, and home. “I do not care to dance,” said +she, falteringly; “but I could go home, if you felt disposed to +fiddle.”</p> + +<p>“Then go home and rest,” cried the stranger, brightly. +“'Tis a strain on the throat to lilt so long, and you cannot +put in a new string as you can in a fiddle.”</p> + +<p>With that the young man came forward to the front of the little +gallery, and Madelon yielded up her place hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“But you cannot dance yourself, sir,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I have danced all I want to to-night,” he replied, +and began tuning the fiddle.</p> + +<p>“I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, sir,” Madelon said, +and got her hood and cloak from the back of the gallery with no more +parley.</p> + +<p>The young man cast admiring glances after her as she went out, +with her young brother at her heels.</p> + +<p>“I'm going home with you,” Richard said to her as they +went down the gallery stairs.</p> + +<p>“Not a step,” said she. “You've just been after +the fiddle, and they're going to dance the Fisher's Hornpipe +next.”</p> + +<p>“You'll be afraid in that lonesome stretch after you leave +the village.”</p> + +<p>“Afraid!” There was a ring of despairing scorn in the +girl's voice, as if she faced already such woe that the supposition +of new terror was an absurdity.</p> + +<p>They had come down to the ball-room floor, and were standing +directly in front of the musicians' gallery. The young fiddler, Jim +Otis, leaned over and looked at them.</p> + +<p>“I don't care,” said Richard, “I won't let you +go alone unless you take my knife.”</p> + +<p>Madelon laughed. “What nonsense!” said she, and tried +to pass her brother.</p> + +<p>But Richard held her by the arm while he rummaged in his pocket +for the great clasp-knife which he had earned himself by the sale of +some rabbit-skins, and which was the pride of his heart and his +dearest treasure, and opened it. “Here,” said he, and he +forced the clasp-knife into his sister's hand. Otis, leaning over the +gallery, saw it all. Many of the dancers had gone to supper; there +was no other person very near them. “If you should meet a +<em>bear</em>, you could kill him with that knife—it's so +strong,” said the boy. “If you don't take it I'll go home +with you, and it's so late father won't let me come out again +to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I'll take it,” Madelon said, wearily, and she +passed out of the ball-room with the knife in her hand, under her +cloak.</p> + +<p>When she got out in the cold night air she sped along fast over +the creaking snow, still holding the knife clutched fast in her hand. +She began to lilt again as she went, and again Burr and Dorothy +danced together before her eyes. She passed Parson Fair's house, and +the best-room windows were lighted. She thought that Burr was there, +and she lilted more loudly the Virginia reel.</p> + +<p>After Parson Fair's house was some time left behind, and she had +come into the lengthy stretch of road, she saw a shadowy figure +ahead. She could not at first tell whether it was moving towards or +from her—whether it was a man or a woman; or, indeed, whether +it were not a forest tree encroaching on the road and moving in the +wind. She kept on swiftly, holding her knife under her cloak. She had +stopped singing.</p> + +<p>Presently she saw that the figure was a man, and coming her way; +and then her heart stood still, for she knew by the swing of his +shoulders that it was Burr Gordon. She threw back her proud head and +sped along towards him, grasping her knife under her cloak and +looking neither to the right nor left. She swerved not her eyes a +hair's-breadth when she came close to him—so close that their +shoulders almost touched in passing in the narrow path.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was a quick sigh in her ear—“Oh, +Madelon!” Then an arm was flung around her waist and hot lips +were pressed to her own.</p> + +<p>The mixed blood of two races, in which action is quick to follow +impulse, surged up to Madelon's head. She drew the hand which held +the knife from under her cloak and struck. “Kiss me again, Burr +Gordon, if you dare!” she cried out, and her cry was met by a +groan as he fell away from her into the snow.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter IV</h4> + +<p>Madelon stood for a second looking at the dark, prostrate form as +one of her Iroquois ancestors might have looked at a fallen foe +before he drew his scalping-knife; then suddenly the surging of the +savage blood in her ears grew faint. She fell down on her knees +beside him. “Have I killed you, Burr?” she said, and bent +her face down to his—and it was not Burr, but Lot Gordon!</p> + +<p>The white, peaked face smiled up at her out of the snow. +“You haven't killed me if I die, since you took me for +Burr,” whispered Lot Gordon.</p> + +<p>“Are you much hurt?”</p> + +<p>“I—don't know. The knife has gone a little way into my +side. It has not reached my heart, but that was hurt unto death +already by life, so this matters not.”</p> + +<p>Madelon felt along his side and hit the handle of the clasp-knife, +firmly fixed.</p> + +<p>“Don't try to draw it out—you cannot,” said Lot, +and his pain forced a groan from him. “I'll live, if I can, +till the wound is healed for the sake of your peace. I'd be content +to die of it, since you gave it in vengeance for another man's kiss, +if it were not for you. But they shall never know—they shall +never—know.” Lot's voice died away in a faint murmur +between his parted lips; his eyes stared up with no meaning in them +at the wintry stars.</p> + +<p>Madelon ran back on the road to the village, taking great leaps +through the snow, straining her eyes ahead. Now and then she cried +out hoarsely, as if she really saw some one, “Hullo! +hullo!” At the curve of the road she turned a headlong corner +and ran roughly against a man who was hurrying towards her; and this +time it was Burr Gordon.</p> + +<p>Burr reeled back with the shock; then his face peered into hers +with fear and wonder. “Is it you?” he stammered out. +“What is the matter?”</p> + +<p>But Madelon caught his arm in a hard grip. “Come, +quick!” she gasped, and pulled him along the road after +her.</p> + +<p>“What is the matter?” Burr demanded, half yielding and +half resisting.</p> + +<p>Madelon faced him suddenly as they sped along. “I met your +cousin Lot just below here and he kissed me, and I took him for you +and stabbed him, if you must know,” she sobbed out, dryly.</p> + +<p>Burr gave a choking cry of horror.</p> + +<p>“I think I—have killed him,” said she, and +pulled him on faster.</p> + +<p>“And you meant to kill me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did.”</p> + +<p>“I wish to God you had!” Burr cried out, with a sudden +fierce anger at himself and her; and now he hurried on faster than +she.</p> + +<p>Lot was quite motionless when they reached him. Burr threw himself +down in the snow and leaned his ear to his cousin's heart. Madelon +stood over them, panting. Suddenly a merry roulade of whistling broke +the awful stillness. Two men were coming down the road whistling +“Roy's Wife of Alidivalloch” as clearly soft and sweet as +flutes, accented with human gayety and mirth.</p> + +<p>On came the merry whistlers. Burr sprang up and grasped Madelon +Hautville's arm. “He isn't dead,” he whispered, hoarsely. +“Somebody's coming. Go home, quick!”</p> + +<p>But Madelon looked at him with despairing obstinacy. “I'll +stay,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, go! Somebody is coming. I'll get help. I'll +send for the doctor. Go home!”</p> + +<p>“No!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, if you have ever loved me, go home!”</p> + +<p>Madelon turned away at that. “I'll be there when they come +for me,” said she, and went swiftly down the road and out of +sight in the converging distance of trees, with the snow muffling her +footsteps.</p> + +<p>When she reached home she groped her way into the living-room, +which was lighted only by the low, red gleam of the coals on the +hearth. Her father's gruff voice called out from the bedroom beyond: +“That you, Madelon?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said she, and lighted a candle at the +coals.</p> + +<p>“Have the boys come?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Madelon went up the steep stairs to her chamber, but before she +opened her door her brother Louis's voice, broken with pain, besought +her to come into his room and bathe his sprained shoulder for him. +She went in, set the candle on the table, and rubbed in the +cider-brandy and wormwood without a word. Louis, in the midst of his +pain, kept looking up wonderingly at his sister's face. It looked as +if it were frozen. She did not seem to see him. Nothing about her +seemed alive but her gently moving hands.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he gave a startled cry. “What's that? Have you cut +your hand, Madelon?” Madelon glanced at her hand, and there +was a broad red stain over the palm and three of her fingers.</p> + +<p>“No,” said she, and went on rubbing.</p> + +<p>“But it looks like blood!” cried Louis, knitting his +pale brows at her.</p> + +<p>Madelon made no reply.</p> + +<p>“Madelon, what is that on your hand?”</p> + +<p>“Blood.”</p> + +<p>“How came it there?”</p> + +<p>“You'll know to-morrow.” Madelon put the stopper in +the cider-brandy and wormwood bottle; then she covered up the wounded +arm and went out.</p> + +<p>“Madelon, what is it? What is the matter? What ails +you?” Louis called after her.</p> + +<p>“You'll know to-morrow,” said she, and shut her +chamber door, which was nearly opposite Louis's. His youngest brother +Richard occupied the same room, having his little cot at the other +side, under the window. When he came in, an hour later, Louis turned +to him eagerly.</p> + +<p>“Has anything happened?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>The boy's face, which was always so like his sister's, had the +same despair in it now. “Don't know of anything that's +happened,” he returned, surlily.</p> + +<p>“What ails Madelon?”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I don't know.” Richard would say no more. +He blew out his candle and tumbled into bed, turned his face to the +window and lay awake until and hour before dawn. Then he arose, +dressed himself, and went down-stairs. He put more wood on the hearth +fire, then knelt down before it, and puffed out his boyish cheeks at +the bellows until the new flames crept through the smoke. Then he +lighted the lantern, and went to the barn to milk and feed the stock. +That was always Richard's morning task, and he always on his way +thither replenished the hearth fire, that his sister Madelon might +have a lighter and speedier task at preparing breakfast. Madelon +usually arose a half-hour after Richard, and she was not behindhand +this morning. She entered the great living-room, lit the candles, and +went about getting breakfast. Human daily needs arise and set on +tragedy as remorselessly as the sun.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville, who had washed but a few hours ago the stain of +murder from her hand, in whose heart was an unsounded depth of +despair, mixed up the corn-meal daintily with cream, and baked the +cakes which her father and brothers loved before the fire, and laid +the table. She had always attended to the needs of the males of her +family with the stern faithfulness of an Indian squaw. Now, as she +worked, the wonder, softer than her other emotions, was upon her as +to how they would get on when she was in prison and after she was +dead; for she made no doubt that she had killed Lot Gordon and the +sheriff would be there presently for her, and she felt plainly the +fretting of the rope around her soft neck. She hoped they would not +come for her until breakfast was prepared and eaten, the dishes +cleared away, and the house tidied; but she listened like a savage +for a foot-fall and a hand at the door. She had packed a little +bundle ready to take with her before she left her chamber. Her cloak +and hood were laid out on the bed.</p> + +<p>When she sat down at the table with her father and brothers, all +of them except Richard and Louis stared at her with open amazement +and questioned her. Richard and Louis stared furtively at their +sister's face, as stiff, set, and pale as if she were dead, but they +asked no questions. Madelon said, in a voice that was not hers, that +she was not sick, and put pieces of Indian cake into her untasting +mouth and listened. But breakfast was well over and the dishes put +away before anybody came. And then it was not the sheriff to hale her +to prison on a charge of murder, but an old man from the village big +with news.</p> + +<p>He was a relative of the Hautvilles, an uncle on the mother's +side, old and broken, scarcely able to find his feeble way on his +shrunken legs through the snow; but, with the instinct of gossip, the +sharp nose for his neighbors' affairs, still alert in him, he had +arisen at dawn to canvass the village, and had come thither at first, +since he anticipated that he might possibly have the delight of +bringing the intelligence before any of the family had heard it +elsewhere. He came in, dragging his old, snow-laden feet, tapping +heavily with his stout stick, and settled, cackling, into a +chair.</p> + +<p>“Heard the news?” queried Uncle Luke basset, his eyes, +like black sparks, twinkling rapidly at all their faces.</p> + +<p>Madelon set the cups and saucers on the dresser.</p> + +<p>“We don't have any time for anybody's business but our +own,” quoth David Hautville, gruffly. He did not like his +wife's uncle. He was tightening a string in his bass-viol; he pulled +it as he spoke, and it gave out a fierce twang. Louis sat moodily +over the fire with his painful arm in wet bandages. Richard was +whittling kindling-wood, with nervous speed, beside him. Eugene and +Abner were cleaning their guns. They all looked at the eager old man +except Richard and Louis and Madelon.</p> + +<p>“Burr Gordon has killed Lot so's to get his property,” +proclaimed the old man, and his voice broke with eager delight and +importance.</p> + +<p>Madelon gave a cry and sprang forward in front of him. “It's +a lie!” she shouted.</p> + +<p>The old man laughed in her face. “No, 'tain't, Madelon. +You're showin' a Christian sperrit to stan' up for him when he's +jilted ye for another gal, but 'tain't a lie. His knife, with his +name on to it, was a-stickin' out of Lot's side.”</p> + +<p>“<em>It's a lie!</em> I killed him with my brother +Richard's knife!”</p> + +<p>The old man shrank back before her in incredulous horror. The +great bass-viol fell to the ground like a woman as David strode +forward and Abner and Eugene turned their shocked, white faces from +their guns.</p> + +<p>“I killed him with Richard's knife,” repeated +Madelon.</p> + +<p>Richard got up and came around before her, thrusting his hand in +his pocket. He pulled out his own clasp-knife, and brandished it in +her face. “Here is my knife,” he cried, +fiercely—“my knife, with my name cut in the handle. Say +you killed Lot Gordon with it again!”</p> + +<p>Madelon snatched the knife out of her brother's hand and looked at +it with straining eyes. There, indeed, was a rude “R. H.” +cut in the horn handle. She gasped. “What does this +mean?” she cried out.</p> + +<p>“It means you have lost your wits,” answered Richard, +contemptuously; but his eyes on his sister's face were full of +pleading agony.</p> + +<p>“What knife did you give me when I started home last +night?”</p> + +<p>“I gave you no knife.”</p> + +<p>Old Luke Basset asserted himself again. “The gal's lost her +balance,” he said. “It was Burr Gordon's knife, with his +name cut into it, that was stickin' out of Lot Gordon's +side.”</p> + +<p>“Is Lot Gordon dead?” Louis demanded, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“No, he ain't dead, but the doctor thinks he can't live +long. Ephraim Steele and Eleazer Hooper were a-goin' home from the +ball when they come right on Lot layin' side of the road and Burr +a-tryin' to draw his knife out, so it shouldn't testify against +him.”</p> + +<p>“It's a lie!” Madelon groaned. “Burr Gordon did +not kill him. It was I! He met me, and tried to—kiss me, +and—the knife was in my hand—Richard made me take it +because I was coming home alone, and there had been rumors of a +bear.”</p> + +<p>“I did not,” persisted Richard, doggedly. “I did +not make her take my knife. Here is my knife, with my name cut in the +handle.”</p> + +<p>Madelon turned on him fiercely. “You did, you know you +did!” said she.</p> + +<p>“Here is my knife, with my name cut on the +handle.”</p> + +<p>“You gave me a knife as I was coming out of the +tavern.”</p> + +<p>“No, I did not.”</p> + +<p>“You did, and I killed him with it. It was not Burr! I ran +for help, and I met Burr, and I told him what I had done, and he went +back with me to Lot. Then he sent me home when he heard somebody +coming. Ask Lot Gordon if I did not kill him; if he can speak he can +tell you.”</p> + +<p>“There won't neither him nor Burr say a word,” said +the old man, “but there was Burr's knife a-stickin' into Lot's +side, with his name cut into it.”</p> + +<p>Madelon turned sharply to Louis. “You saw the blood on my +hand when I was rubbing your arm last night,” she said.</p> + +<p>He made no reply, but stared gloomily at the fire.</p> + +<p>“Louis, you saw Lot Gordon's blood on my hand?”</p> + +<p>Louis sprang up with an oath, and pushed past her out of the +room.</p> + +<p>“Louis,” Madelon cried, “tell them!”</p> + +<p>“She is trying to shield Burr Gordon!” Louis called +back, fiercely, and the closing door shook the house like a +cannon-shot.</p> + +<p>“Where is Burr?” Madelon demanded of old Luke +Basset.</p> + +<p>“The sheriff took him to New Salem to jail this +morning,” he replied, grinning.</p> + +<p>Madelon gave a great cry and started to rush out of the room, but +her father stood in her way.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” he asked, sternly.</p> + +<p>“I am going to get my hood and cloak, and then I am going to +Lot Gordon's.” Her father stood aside, and she went out and +up-stairs to her chamber. She took up the red cloak which lay on her +bed, and examined it eagerly to see if by chance there was a blood +stain thereon to prove her guilt and Burr Gordon's innocence, but she +could find none. She had flung it back when she struck. She looked +also carefully at her pretty ball gown, but the black fabric showed +no stain.</p> + +<p>When she went down-stairs with her cloak and hood on old Luke +Basset was gone, and so were her brothers. Her father stood waiting +for her, and he had on his fur cap and his heavy cloak. He came +forward and took her firmly by the arm. “I'm going with you to +Lot Gordon's,” said he. And they went out together and up the +road, he still keeping a firm hand on his daughter's arm, and neither +spoke all the way to Lot Gordon's house.</p> + +<p>When they reached it David Hautville opened the door without +touching the knocker, and strode in with Madelon following. Old +Margaret Bean was just passing through the entry with a great roll of +linen cloths in her arms, and she stopped when she saw them.</p> + +<p>“How is he?” whispered David, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“He's pretty low,” returned Margaret Bean, at the same +time nodding her head cautiously towards the door on her right. Long, +smooth loops of sallow hair fell from Margaret Bean's clean white cap +over her cheeks, which looked as if they had been scrubbed and rasped +red with tears. Her own gray hair was strained back out of +sight—not to be discovered, even when there was a murder in the +house.</p> + +<p>“Does he know anybody?” queried David Hautville.</p> + +<p>“Just as well as ever he did.” Margaret Bean rubbed a +tear dry on her cheek with her starched apron.</p> + +<p>“We've got to see him, then.”</p> + +<p>“I dunno as you can—the doctor—”</p> + +<p>“I don't care anything about the doctor! We've <em>got</em> +to <em>see him!”</em> David's voice rang out quite loud in the +hush of murder and death which seemed to fill the house. Margaret +Bean stood aside with a scared look. David Hautville threw open the +door on the right, and he and Madelon went in.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon's eyes turned towards them, but not his head. He lay as +still in bed as if he were already dead, and his long body raised the +gay patchwork quilt in a stiff ridge like a grave.</p> + +<p>Madelon went close to him and bent over him. “Tell who +stabbed you,” said she, in a sharp voice.</p> + +<p>Lot looked up at her, and a red flush came over his livid +face.</p> + +<p>“Tell who stabbed you.”</p> + +<p>Lot smiled feebly, but he did not speak.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean came in, with her old husband shuffling at her +heels. A great face, bristling with a yellow stubble of beard, +appeared in the door. It belonged to the sheriff, Jonas Hapgood, who +had just returned from taking Burr to New Salem. Madelon cast a +desperate glance around at them. “Lot Gordon,” she cried +out, “tell them—tell them I was the one who stabbed you, +and set Burr free!”</p> + +<p>There was a chuckle from Jonas Hapgood in the door. “Likely +story,” he muttered to Margaret Bean's husband, and the old man +nodded wisely.</p> + +<p>“Tell them!” commanded Madelon. She reached out a hand +as if she would shake Lot Gordon into obedience, wounded unto death +although he was, but Lot only smiled up in her face.</p> + +<p>Then David Hautville bent his stern face down to the sick man's. +“Lot Gordon, tell the truth before God, daughter of mine or no +daughter of mine,” said he, in his deep voice. Lot only +followed Madelon with his longing, smiling eyes.</p> + +<p>“Speak, Lot Gordon!”</p> + +<p>The wounded man turned his eyes on David and made a feeble motion, +scarcely more than a quiver of his hand, which seemed to express +negation.</p> + +<p>“Can't you speak?”</p> + +<p>Again Lot made that faint signal.</p> + +<p>“He ain't spoke sence they brought him home,” said +Margaret Bean—“not a word to the doctor nor +nobody.”</p> + +<p>“I couldn't get a word out of him,” announced the +sheriff, stepping farther into the room. “In course, there was +Burr's knife and Burr himself over him when the others came up, and +that was proof enough; but still we kinder thought we'd like to have +Lot's word for it afore he died, in case it came to hangin' with +Burr; but I guess he's past speakin'. I miss my guess if he can sense +anything we say.”</p> + +<p>“Tell them—tell them I was the one who stabbed you, +and Burr is innocent!” Madelon pleaded; but he smiled back at +her unmoved.</p> + +<p>Jonas Hapgood's great body shook with mirth. “Likely story a +gal did it,” he chuckled.</p> + +<p>“I did do it!” returned Madelon, fiercely, turning to +him.</p> + +<p>“I guess you don't want your beau hung.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I killed this man. I am the one to be +hung!”</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter V</h4> + +<p>The sheriff turned to David Hautville. “Guess you'd better +take your gal home,” he said, his red, bristling cheeks broad +with laughter. “Guess she's kind of off her balance, she feels +so bad about her beau.”</p> + +<p>David's black eyes flashed haughtily at Jonas Hapgood, who +straightened his face suddenly. He deigned not a word to him, but he +turned to his daughter with a stern air. “Whether it is one +way, or whether it is the other way,” said he, “we go +neither by staying here. Come home.”</p> + +<p>“I won't go!”</p> + +<p>David looked sharply at his daughter's face. Jonas Hapgood's doubt +was over him too. He wondered, with a great spasm of wrath, if she +could be accusing herself to shield this man who had played her +false.</p> + +<p>He grasped her arm again. “Come,” he said, “I'll +have no more of this,” and Madelon went out with her father. +Full of spirit as she was, she had always been strangely docile with +him. He had ruled all his children with a firm hand from their youth +up, and tuned their wills to suit his ear as he did his viol +strings.</p> + +<p>“I'll have no foolery,” he said to her, gruffly, when +they were out on the road. “I'll have no putting yourself in +the wrong to save a man that's given you the go-by. If ye be fooling +me, ye can stop it now if you're a daughter of mine.” He shook +his head fiercely at her.</p> + +<p>But Madelon answered him with a burst of wrath that equalled his +own. “I stabbed him because I took him for the man who jilted +me a-trying to kiss me, with Dorothy Fair's kiss on his lips. +<em>Me!</em>” she cried; and she raised her hand as if she +would have struck again had Burr Gordon and his false lips been +there.</p> + +<p>Her father looked at her gloomily, then strode on with his eyes on +the snowy ground. He was still in doubt. David Hautville had that +primitive order of mind which distrusts and holds in contempt that +which it cannot clearly comprehend, and he could not comprehend +womankind. His sons were to him as words of one syllable in straight +lines; his daughter was written in compound and involved sentences, +as her mother had been before her. Fond and proud of Madelon as he +was, and in spite of his stern anxiety, her word had not the weight +with him that one of his son's would have had. It was as if he had +visions of endless twistings and complexities which might give it the +lie, and rob it, at all events, of its direct force.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Madelon strengthened this doubt by crying out passionately +all at once, as they went on: “Father, you must believe me! I +tell you I did it! I—don't let them hang him! Father!” +All Madelon's proud fierceness was gone for a moment. She looked up +at her father, choking with great sobs.</p> + +<p>David smiled down at her convulsed face. “She's nothing but +a woman,” he thought to himself, and he thought also, with a +throb of angry relief, that she had not killed Lot Gordon. +“Come along home and red up the house, and let's have no more +fooling,” he said, roughly, and strode on faster and would not +say another word, although Madelon besought him hard to assure her +that he believed her, and that Burr should not be hanged, until they +reached the Hautville house. Then he turned on her and said, with +keen sarcasm that stung more than a whip-lash, “'Tis Parson +Fair's daughter and not mine that should come down the road in broad +daylight a-bawling for Burr Gordon.”</p> + +<p>Madelon started back, and her face stiffened and whitened. She +shut her mouth hard and followed her father into the house. The great +living-room was empty; indeed, not one of the Hautville sons was in +the house; even Louis was gone. David took his axe out of the corner +and set out for the woods to cut some cedar fire-logs. Madelon put +the house in order, setting the kitchen and pantry to rights, going +through the icy chambers and making the high feather beds. In her own +room she paused long and searched again, holding up her red cloak and +her ball dress to the window, where they caught the wintry light, for +a stain of blood that might prove her guilt; but she could find +none.</p> + +<p>Madelon prepared dinner for her father and brothers as usual, and +when it was ready to be dished she stood in the doorway, with the +north wind buffeting her in the face, and blew the dinner-horn with a +blast that could be heard far off in the woods.</p> + +<p>Presently her father emerged from under the snowy boughs with his +axe over his shoulder, and shortly afterwards Eugene and Abner came, +in Indian file, with their guns. Eugene was carrying a fat rabbit by +its long ears. Louis and Richard did not come at all. David asked +sternly of their brothers where they were, but neither Eugene nor +Abner knew. They had not seen them since David and Madelon left for +Lot Gordon's that morning.</p> + +<p>Madelon set the food before her father and her brothers, and took +her place as usual, and ate as she might have filled a crock with +milk or cakes, tasting nothing which she put into her mouth. She did +not during the meal say another word concerning the tragedy in which +she was living, but there was a strange silent vehemence and fire +about her which seemed louder than speech. Now and then her father +and her brothers started and stared at her as if she had cried out. +Two red spots had come on her brown cheeks; her eyes were glittering +with dark light; her lips were a firm red; her fingers stiffened with +nervous clutches. She looked as if every muscle in her were strained +and rigid for a leap.</p> + +<p>After dinner Eugene and Abner went out again with their guns, and +David smoked his old pipe by the fire, while Madelon put away the +dishes and swept the floor. When her work was finished the pipe was +smoked out, and David rose up slowly, clapped his fur cap over his +white head, and took up his axe.</p> + +<p>“Mind ye say what ye said this morning to nobody +else,” he said, as he went out the door.</p> + +<p>“I'll say it with my dying breath,” returned Madelon, +and she caught her breath, as if it were indeed her last, as she +spoke.</p> + +<p>“Accuse yourself of murder, would ye, and be hung, and leave +your own kith and kin with nobody to keep house for them, for the +sake of a man that's left ye for another girl!”</p> + +<p>“Father, I tell you that <em>I</em> did it!”</p> + +<p>But David clapped to the door on her speech, and the awful truth +of it seemed to smite her in her own face.</p> + +<p>Madelon went up-stairs, and brushed and braided her black hair +before her glass; but the face therein did not look like her own to +her, and she felt all the time as if she were braiding and wreathing +the hair around another's head. One of those deeds had she committed +which lead a man to see suddenly the stranger that abides always in +his flesh and in his own soul, and makes him realize that of all the +millions of earth there is not one that he knows not better than his +own self, nor whose face can look so strange to him in the light of +his own actions.</p> + +<p>Madelon put her red cloak over her shoulders as she might have put +it on a lay-figure, and tied on her hood. Then she went down-stairs, +out of the house to the barn, and put the side-saddle on the roan +mare.</p> + +<p>Not another woman in the village, and scarcely a man except the +Hautville sons, would have dared to ride this roan, with the backward +roll of her vicious eyes and her wicked, flat-laid ears; but Madelon +Hautville could not be thrown.</p> + +<p>The mare, when she was saddled, danced an iron-bound dance in the +barn bay, but Madelon bade her stand still, and she obeyed, her +nostrils quivering, the breath coming from them in a snort of smoke, +and every muscle under her roan hide vibrating.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon placed her foot in the stirrup, and was in the +saddle, pulling the bit hard against the jaw, and the mare shot out +of the barn with a fierce lash-out of her heels and an upheaval of +her gaunt roan flanks that threatened to dash the girl's head against +the lintel of the door.</p> + +<p>But Madelon knew with what she had to do, and she bent low in the +saddle and passed out in safety. Then she spared not the mare for +nigh three miles on the New Salem road. It was ten miles to New +Salem, and it did not take long to reach it, riding a horse who went +at times as if all the fiends were in chase, and often sprang out +like a bow into the wayside bushes, and was off with a new spurt of +vicious terror. It was still far from sundown when Madelon Hautville +tied the roan outside the jail where Burr Gordon lay.</p> + +<p>Burr was sitting in his cell, which was nothing but a rough +chamber with whitewashed walls and a grated window. It was furnished +with a bed, a table, and a chair. He had an inkstand and a great +sheet of paper on the table, and he was writing a letter when the +bolt shot and the jailer entered with Madelon Hautville.</p> + +<p>Burr looked at her with a white, incredulous face. Then he started +up and came forward, but Madelon did not look at him. She turned to +the jailer, Alvin Mead. “I want to see him alone,” said +she, imperatively.</p> + +<p>“It's again my orders,” said the jailer. He was a +great man, with an arm like a crow-bar. He was reputed to have used +it as one many a time at a house-raising.</p> + +<p>“I've got to see him alone!”</p> + +<p>“He's in here on a charge of murder, and it's again my +orders,” repeated Alvin Mead, like a parrot.</p> + +<p>“I've got to see him alone!”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead looked at her irresolutely with his stupid light eyes; +then all his great system of bone and muscle seemed to back out of +the room before her. He shut the door after him, and they heard the +bolt slide.</p> + +<p>Madelon turned to Burr. “Tell them,” she gasped +out—“tell them it was—I!”</p> + +<p>Burr did not speak for a minute; he stood looking at her. +“Perhaps I am not any too much of a man,” he said, +slowly, at length, “but you ask me to be a good deal less of a +man than I am.”</p> + +<p>Madelon did not seem to hear him. “I have told them I did +it! I have told them all,” said she, “but they won't +believe me—they won't believe me! <em>You</em> must tell +them.”</p> + +<p>“I will die before I will tell them,” said Burr +Gordon.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at his white face, which was set against hers like +a rock; then she gave a great cry and fell down on her knees before +him. “Tell them,” she moaned, “or they will hang +you—they will hang you, Burr!”</p> + +<p>“Let them hang me, then!”</p> + +<p>“Tell them; they won't believe me!”</p> + +<p>Burr caught hold of her two arms and raised her to her feet. +“See here, Madelon,” said he, “don't you +know—”</p> + +<p>She looked at him dumbly.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know—I would not tell them if they would, +but—I might tell them until I was gray, and they would not +believe me!”</p> + +<p>Madelon cried out sharply, as if she in her turn had been struck +to the heart.</p> + +<p>“It is true,” Burr said, quietly.</p> + +<p>“Then if he dies without telling, there is no way +of—saving you—”</p> + +<p>Burr shook his head.</p> + +<p>“The knife—how—came your knife there instead of +Richard's?”</p> + +<p>Burr smiled.</p> + +<p>Bluish shadows came around Madelon's dark eyes and her mouth. She +gasped for breath as she spoke. “I—have—killed you, +then,” said she. Suddenly she put up her white, stiffly +quivering lips to Burr's. “Kiss me!” she cried out. +“I beg you to give me the kiss that I might have killed you for +last night!”</p> + +<p>Burr bent down and kissed her, and she threw her arms around him +and pressed his head to her bosom. “They shall not,” she +cried out, fiercely—“they shall not hang you! I will make +them believe me! Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Burr.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” Burr said, huskily, “I have been +double-faced and false to you, but, as God is my witness, I'm glad +I've got the chance to suffer in your stead.”</p> + +<p>“You shall not! They shall believe I did it. I will make Lot +Gordon tell. He shall tell before he dies!”</p> + +<p>The bolt slid back, and Alvin Mead's great bulk darkened the +doorway. Madelon turned her face towards him, with her arms still +clasping Burr and holding his head to her bosom. “This man is +innocent!” she cried out, with a fierce gesture of protection, +as if she were defending her young instead of her false lover. +“I tell you he is innocent—you must let him go! I am the +one who stabbed Lot Gordon!”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead stared; his heavy pink jaw lopped.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, you must let him go!” She released Burr +from her arms and gave him a push towards the door. “Go +out,” she said; “I am the one to stay here.”</p> + +<p>But Alvin Mead collected and brought about his great body with a +show of lumbering fists. “Come,” said he, “this +ain't a-goin to do. We can't have no sech work as this, young woman. +It's time you went.”</p> + +<p>“Let him go, I tell you!” commanded Madelon, +confronting him fiercely. “I am going to stay.”</p> + +<p>“They won't let you come again if you don't go quietly +now,” Burr whispered, and he laid his hand on her nervous +shoulder.</p> + +<p>“I ruther guess we won't have no sech doin's again,” +said Alvin Mead, with sulky assent.</p> + +<p>“You must go, Madelon.”</p> + +<p>Madelon tied on her hood. Her white face had its rigid, desperate +look again.</p> + +<p>“I will make them believe me yet, and you shall be set +free,” she said to Burr, with a stern nod, and passed out, +while Alvin Mead stood back to give her passage, watching her with +sullen and wary eyes. He was, in truth, half afraid of her.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter VI</h4> + +<p>When Madelon, returning from New Salem, came in sight of her home +the first thing which she noticed was her father in the yard in front +of the house.</p> + +<p>David Hautville's great figure stood out in the dusk of the snowy +landscape like a giant's. He was motionless. The roan mare's gallop +had evidently struck his ear some time before, and he knew that +Madelon was returning. He did not even look her way as she drew +nearer, but when she rode into the yard he made a swift movement +forward and seized the mare by the bridle. She reared, but Madelon +sat firm, with wretched, undaunted eyes upon her father. David +Hautville's eyes blazed back at her out of the whiteness of his +wrath.</p> + +<p>“Where have you been?” he demanded, in a thick +voice.</p> + +<p>“To New Salem.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“To see Burr, and beg him to confess that I killed +Lot.”</p> + +<p>“You didn't.”</p> + +<p>“I did.”</p> + +<p>“Fool!” David Hautville jerked the bridle so fiercely +that the mare reared far back again. He jerked her down to her feet, +and she made a vicious lunge at him, but he shunted her away.</p> + +<p>“I'll fasten you into your chamber,” he shouted, +“if this work goes on! I'll stop your making a fool of +yourself.”</p> + +<p>“It is Lot Gordon that is making fools of you all,” +said Madelon, in a hard, quiet voice.</p> + +<p>“Did Burr Gordon say he didn't stab him?” cried her +father.</p> + +<p>“No; he wouldn't own it. He is trying to shield +me.”</p> + +<p>“He did it himself, and he'll hang for it.”</p> + +<p>“No, he won't hang for what I did while I draw the breath of +life. I've got the strength of ten in me. You don't know me, if I am +your daughter.” Madelon freed her bridle with a quick +movement, and the mare flew forward into the barn.</p> + +<p>David Hautville stood looking after her in utter fury and +bewilderment. Her last words rang in his ears and seemed true to him. +He felt as if he did not know his own daughter. This awakening and +lashing into action, by the terrible pressure of circumstances, of +strange ancestral traits which he had himself transmitted was beyond +his simple comprehension. He shook his head with a fierce +helplessness and went into the barn.</p> + +<p>“Go in and get the supper,” he ordered, “and +<em>I</em>'ll take care of the mare.”</p> + +<p>As Madelon came out of the stall he grasped her roughly by the arm +and peered sharply into her face. The thought seized him that she +must surely not be in her right mind—that Burr's treatment of +her and his danger had turned her brain. “Be you crazy, +Madelon?” he asked, in his straightforward simplicity, and +there was an accent of doubt and pity in his voice.</p> + +<p>“No, father,” she replied, “I am not crazy. Let +me go.”</p> + +<p>She broke away from him and was out of the barn door, but suddenly +she turned and came running back. The sudden softness in his voice +had stirred the woman in her to weakness. She went close to her +father, and threw up her arms around his great neck, and clung to +him, and sobbed as if she would sob her soul away, and pleaded with +him as for her life.</p> + +<p>“Father!” she cried—“father, help me! +Believe me! Tell them I did it! Tell them it is true! Don't let them +hang Burr. Help me to save him, father! Don't let them! Save him! Oh, +you will save him, father? You will? Tell me, father—tell me, +tell me!” Madelon's voice rose into a wild shriek.</p> + +<p>A sudden conviction of his solution of the matter and of his own +astuteness came over David Hautville's primitive masculine +intelligence. His daughter was wellnigh distraught with her lover's +faithlessness and his awful crime and danger. She was to be watched +and guarded lest she make a further spectacle of herself; but treated +softly as might be, for she was naught but a woman, and liable to +mischievous ailments of nerve and brain. David pressed his daughter's +dark head with his hard, tender hand against his shoulder, then +forced her gently away from him.</p> + +<p>“It'll be all right,” said he, +soothingly—“it'll be all right. Don't you +worry.”</p> + +<p>“Father, you will?”</p> + +<p>“I'll fix it all right. Don't you worry.”</p> + +<p>“Father, you promise?”</p> + +<p>“I'll do everything I can. Don't you worry, Madelon. You'd +better go in and get supper now. I'll go along to the house with you +and get the lantern. It's getting too dark to do the work +here.”</p> + +<p>David drew his daughter along, out of the barn, across the snowy +yard to the house, she pleading frantically all the way, he soothing +her with his sudden wisdom of assent and evasion.</p> + +<p>The hearth fire was blazing high when Madelon entered the kitchen. +The red glare of it was on her white face, upturned to her father's +with one last pleading of despair. She clutched his arm and shook his +great frame to and fro.</p> + +<p>“Father, promise me you'll go over to New Salem to-night and +tell them to set him free and take me instead! Father!”</p> + +<p>“We'll see about it, Madelon,” answered David +Hautville. There was a tone in his voice which she had never heard +before. It might have come unconsciously to himself from some memory, +so old that it was itself forgotten, of his dead wife's voice over +the child in her cradle. Some echo of it might have yet lingered in +the old father's soul, through something finer than his instinct for +sweet sounds from human throat and viol—through his ear for +love.</p> + +<p>“Get the supper now, and we'll see about it,” said +David Hautville. He began fumbling with clumsy fingers, all unused to +women's gear, at the string of this daughter's cloak; but she pulled +herself away from him suddenly, and the old hard lines came into her +face. “We'll say no more about it,” said she. She lit a +candle quickly at the hearth fire, and was out of the room to put +away her cloak and hood. Her father lighted his lantern slowly and +went back to the barn, plodding meditatively through the snowy track, +with the melting mood still strong upon him. He was disposed to carry +matters now with a high and tender hand with the girl to bring her to +reason, and he brought all his crude diplomacy to bear upon the +matter.</p> + +<p>When he reached the barn his son Eugene stood in the doorway. He +had just come from the woods, and the smell of wounded cedar-trees +was strong about him. He stood leaning upon his axe as if it were a +staff. “Who's been out with the mare?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Your sister.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“To New Salem.”</p> + +<p>“To see <em>him</em>?”</p> + +<p>David nodded grimly. His lantern cast a pale circle of light on +the snow about them.</p> + +<p>“About—that?”</p> + +<p>“To get him to own up she did it.”</p> + +<p>Eugene Hautville stared at his father, scowling his handsome dark +brows. He was the most graceful mannered of all the Hautville sons, +and by some accounted the best-looking.</p> + +<p>“Is she crazy?” he said.</p> + +<p>“No, she's a woman,” returned his father, with a +strange accent of contempt and toleration.</p> + +<p>“Did the coward lay it to her when she gave him the +chance?” demanded Eugene.</p> + +<p>“No; she said he wouldn't, to shield her.”</p> + +<p>Eugene moved his axe suddenly; the lantern-light struck it, and +there was a bright flash of sharp steel in their eyes. “Shield +her!” he cried out, with an oath. “I wish I could meet +him in the path once. I'd give him a taste before they put the rope +'round his neck, the lying murderer!”</p> + +<p>David nodded his head in savage assent.</p> + +<p>“What's going to be done with Madelon?” cried Eugene, +fiercely.</p> + +<p>“I've been thinking—” said his father, +slowly.</p> + +<p>“No sister of mine shall go about rolling herself in the +dust at that fellow's feet if I can help it.”</p> + +<p>“I've been thinking—would you lock her in her chamber +a spell?”</p> + +<p>“Lock Madelon in her chamber! She'd get out or she'd beat +her brains out against the wall.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know but she would,” assented David, +perplexedly. “You can't count on a woman when they rise up. She +might go away a spell.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“We might send her somewhere.”</p> + +<p>Eugene laughed. The roan mare was pawing in her stall. Now and +then she pounded the floor with a clattering thud like an iron +flail.</p> + +<p>“How far do you suppose that mare would go if you tried to +send her anywhere?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Maybe Madelon wouldn't go.”</p> + +<p>“You'd have to halter the mare,” said Eugene, +“and drag her half the way and stand from under, or she'd +trample you down the other.” Eugene, although his words were +strong, spoke quite softly, lowering his sweet tenor. From where they +stood they could see Madelon moving to and fro behind the kitchen +windows preparing supper.</p> + +<p>“I don't know what to do,” said David, after a +pause.</p> + +<p>“Watch her,” returned Eugene, quietly.</p> + +<p>“Watch her?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I've been under cover days before now watching for a +pretty white fox or a deer I wanted.” Eugene laughed +pleasantly.</p> + +<p>“Will you?”</p> + +<p>“I'll stay by the house to-morrow. She sha'n't go about +accusing herself of murder to save the man that's jilted her if I can +help it.” As he spoke Eugene's handsome face darkened again +vindictively. He hated Burr Gordon for another reason of his own that +nobody suspected.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Abner Hautville came running into the yard. “Who is +it there?” he called out. “Is that you, father? That you, +Eugene? Hello!”</p> + +<p>“Hello!” Eugene called back. “What's the +matter?”</p> + +<p>Abner come panting alongside. He had run from the village, and, +vigorous as he was, breath came hard in the thin air. It was a very +cold night.</p> + +<p>“Where have they gone?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“Who?”</p> + +<p>“Louis and Richard. Where have they gone?”</p> + +<p>There was a ghastly look in Abner's face, in spite of the glowing +red which the cold wind had brought to it. The other man seemed to +catch it and reflect it in their own faces as they stared at him.</p> + +<p>Eugene turned quickly to his father. “Aren't they in the +house?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No, they ain't,” returned David, with his eyes still +on Abner's face.</p> + +<p>“Sure they ain't up chamber?”</p> + +<p>“No; I was home a good half-hour before Madelon came. There +wasn't a soul in the house, and nobody could have come home since +without my knowing it.”</p> + +<p>“They didn't come home this noon either,” said +Eugene.</p> + +<p>“Thought you said they'd gone to see to their traps on West +Mountain?” David rejoined.</p> + +<p>“Thought they had when they didn't come.” Eugene +turned impatiently on Abner. “Where do you think they've +gone—what do you mean by looking so?” he cried.</p> + +<p>Abner dug his heel into the snow. “Don't know,” he +returned, in a surly voice.</p> + +<p>“What do you suspect, then? Good God! can't you speak +out?”</p> + +<p>Abner's features were heavier than his brother's—his speech +and manner slower. He paused a second, even then; then he turned +towards the house, and spoke, with his face away from them, with a +curious directness and taciturnity. “Didn't go to the traps on +West Mountain,” he said, then; “went there myself. They +hadn't been there—no tracks; was home before father was +to-night. Louis and Richard hadn't come. Went down to the village; +hadn't been there.”</p> + +<p>“You don't mean Louis and Richard have run away?” +demanded David.</p> + +<p>“Both their guns and their powder-horns and shot-bags are +gone,” said Abner.</p> + +<p>“They would have taken them anyway,” said Louis.</p> + +<p>“The chest in Louis's chamber is unlocked and the money he +kept in the till is gone, and his fiddle is gone, and the +cider-brandy and wormwood bottle to bathe his arm with, and two +shoulders of pork out of the cellar, and a sack of potatoes, and the +blankets off his and Richard's beds are gone too,” said Abner. +He began to move towards the house.</p> + +<p>His father made a bound after him and grasped his arm. “What +do you mean?” he cried out. “What do you think they've +run away for?”</p> + +<p>“Know as much as I do,” replied Abner. He wrenched his +arm away and strode on towards the house. Then David Hautville and +his son Eugene stood looking at each other with a surmise of horror +growing in their eyes.</p> + +<p>“What does he mean?” David whispered, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>Eugene shook his head.</p> + +<p>Presently Eugene went into the barn and fell to feeding the roan +mare, and David plunged heavily back to the house. He and Abner sat +one on each side of the fire and furtively watched Madelon preparing +supper.</p> + +<p>She spoke never a word. Her red lips were a red line of +resolution. Her despairing eyes were fixed upon her work without a +glance for either of them.</p> + +<p>However, when supper was set on the table, and she had blown the +horn at the door and waited, and nobody else came, she turned with +sudden life upon her father and her brothers, who had already begun +to taste the smoking hasty-pudding. “Where are the +others?” she cried out, shrilly. “Where are Louis and +Richard?”</p> + +<p>The men glanced at one another under sullen eyelids, but nobody +answered. “Where are they?” she repeated.</p> + +<p>“You know as much about it as we do,” Eugene said, +then, in his soft voice.</p> + +<p>Madelon stood with wild eyes flashing from one to another. Then +she gave a sudden spring out of the room, and they heard her swift +feet on the chamber-stairs. The men ate their hasty-pudding, bending +their brows over it as if it were a witches' mess instead of their +ordinary home fare.</p> + +<p>Madelon came back so rapidly that she seemed to fly over the +stairs. They scarcely heard the separate taps of her feet. She burst +into the room and faced them in a sort of fury. “They have +gone!” she gasped out. “Louis and Richard have gone! +Where are they?”</p> + +<p>David Hautville slowly shook his head. Then he took another +spoonful of pudding. The brothers bent with stern assiduity over +their bowls.</p> + +<p>“You have hid them away!” shrieked Madelon. “You +have hid them away lest Louis own that he saw blood on my hand, and +Richard that he gave me his knife! What have you done with +them?”</p> + +<p>Not one of the three men spoke. They swallowed their pudding.</p> + +<p>“Father! Abner! Eugene!” said Madelon, “tell me +what you have done with my brothers, who can testify that I killed +Lot Gordon, and save Burr?”</p> + +<p>David Hautville wiped his mouth on his sleeve, rose up, and took +his daughter firmly by the arm.</p> + +<p>“We know no more what has become of your brothers than you +do,” said he. “If they have gone away for the reason you +say, your old father would be the first to bring them back, if you +were guilty as you say, daughter of mine though you be. But we know +well enough, wherever your brothers have gone, and for whatever cause +they have gone, that you have done nothing worse then go daft, as +women will, to shield a fellow that's used you ill. You shall put us +to no more shame while I am your father and you under my roof. Abner, +fill up a bowl with the pudding.”</p> + +<p>Madelon's face was deathly white and full of rebellion as she +looked up in her father's, but she held herself still with a stern +dignity and did not struggle. David Hautville's will was up. His hand +on her soft arm was like a vise of steel. The memories of her +childhood were strong upon her. She knew of old that there was no +appeal, and was too proud to contend where she must yield.</p> + +<p>“Take the bowl,” said her father, when Abner extended +it filled with the steaming pudding—“take the bowl, and +go you to your chamber. Eat your supper, and get in to your bed and +stay there till morning.”</p> + +<p>Madelon still looked at her father with that same look of +speechless but unyielding rebellion. She did not stir to take the +bowl or go to her chamber.</p> + +<p>“Do as I bid ye!” ordered her father, in a great +voice.</p> + +<p>Madelon took the bowl from her brother's hand and went out of the +room as she was bid; and yet as she went they all knew that there was +no yielding in her.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter VII</h4> + +<p>The next morning Madelon came down-stairs as usual and prepared +breakfast. When it was ready the family sat up to the table and ate +silently and swiftly. No one addressed a word to Madelon. After +breakfast David and his son Abner put on their leather jackets and +their fur caps, and set forth for the woods with their axes, but +Eugene lounged gracefully over to the hearth and sat down on the +settle, and began reading his Shakespeare book. Eugene was the only +one of the Hautvilles who ever read books. He studied faithfully the +few in the house—the Shakespeare, the <cite>Pilgrim's +Progress</cite>, Milton, and <cite>Gulliver's Travels</cite>. The +others wondered at him. They could not understand how any one who +could handle a gun or a musical instrument could lay finger on a +book. “Made-up things,” said Abner once, with a scornful +motion towards Shakespeare.</p> + +<p>“No more made-up than fugue,” retorted Eugene, hotly; +but they all cried out on him.</p> + +<p>This morning Madelon cast one quick glance at him as he sauntered +over to the settle with his book. Then she did not look his way +again. She worked quietly, setting the kitchen to rights.</p> + +<p>The day was very cold; the light in the room was dim and white, +the windows were coated so thickly with the hoar-frost. Eugene kept +stirring the fire and adding sticks as he read.</p> + +<p>Finally, Madelon had finished her work in the kitchen, and went +up-stairs. Then Eugene arose reluctantly, went out into the cold +entry, and stood by the door with his book in hand. Madelon, passing +across the landing above, looked down and saw him standing there, and +knew that what she suspected was true—that her brother was +mounting guard over her lest she leave the house.</p> + +<p>She finished her work in the chamber, and came down-stairs with +some knitting-work in hand. She seated herself quietly in her own +cushioned rocking-chair, and fell to work with yarn and clicking +needles, like any peaceful housewife. She knitted and Eugene read, +bending his handsome dark face, smiling with pleasure, over his +Shakespeare book. This fierce winter day he was reading “A +Midsummer-Night's Dream,” and letting his fancy revel with +Shakespeare's fairies in an enchanted summer wood. He was, however, +alert as a watch-dog. He could at an instant's warning leave that +delicate and dainty crew and those flowery shores, and intercept his +sister, should she attempt to pass him and escape from the house.</p> + +<p>Still, his alertness all came to naught, for Madelon, like some +fleeing fox, took a sudden turn which no canny hunter could have +anticipated. She sat somewhat away from the hearth and well at +Eugene's back. He would have asked her why she did not draw nearer +the fire and if she were not cold had he not feared to encounter a +sulky humor. He could not see the lengths of linen cloth, which she +herself had spun and woven, lying in a great heap on the floor, half +at her back, half under her petticoats. However, could he have seen +it he would have thought of it merely as some mysterious domestic and +feminine proceeding about which he neither knew nor cared to know +anything.</p> + +<p>Madelon, as she knitted, ever measured the distance between her +brother and herself with her great black eyes, training her nerves +and muscles for what she had to do as she would have trained a bow +and arrow.</p> + +<p>Eugene turned a leaf in his Shakespeare book. Madelon made a leap, +so soft and swift that it seemed like an onslaught of Silence itself, +and he was smothered and wound about and entangled in folds of linen +as if it had been in truth his winding-sheet. He struggled as best he +might against his linen bands, and cried out as angrily as he could +for the linen that bound his mouth and his eyes, but he could not +release himself. Eugene was strong and lithe, but Madelon was nearly +as strong as he at any time; and now the great tension of her nerves +seemed to inform all her muscles with the strength of steel wire.</p> + +<p>Eugene sat bound hard and fast to the settle, with his face +swathed like a mummy's, with only enough space clear for breath. +“Let me go, or I'll—” he threatened, in his +smothered tone.</p> + +<p>Madelon made no reply. She watched him struggle to be sure that he +could not free himself. Then she went out of the room. Eugene called +after her in a choke of fury, but she spoke not a word.</p> + +<p>Up-stairs she hastened to her own chamber, and put on her red +cloak and hood, and was down the stairs again, out the door, and +hurrying up the road to the village. From time to time she glanced +behind her to be sure that her brother had not freed himself, and was +not in pursuit; then she sped on faster. The road was glare with ice, +but she did not slow her pace for that. She was as sure-footed as a +hare. She kept her arms close to her sides under her red cloak, and +did not pause until she came out on the village street where the +houses were thick. Then she went at a rapid walk, still glancing +sharply behind her to see if she were followed, until she came to +Parson Fair's house. She went up the front walk, between the rows of +ice-coated box, and up the stone steps under the stately columned +porch, and raised the knocker and let it fall with sharp impetus. The +door opened speedily a little way, and Parson Fair himself stood +there, his pale, stern old face framed in the dark aperture. He bowed +with gentle courtesy and bade her good-morning, and Madelon +courtesied hurriedly and spoke out her errand with no preface.</p> + +<p>“Can I see your daughter, sir?” said she.</p> + +<p>Parson Fair looked at Madelon's white face, touched on the cheeks +and lips with feverish red, at her set mouth and desperate eyes. The +story of her connection with the Gordon tragedy had not penetrated to +his study, neither did he know how Burr had forsaken her for his +Dorothy; but he saw something was amiss with her, although he was not +well versed in the signs of a woman's face. Parson Fair, moreover, +felt somewhat of interest in this Madelon Hautville, for he had a +decorously restrained passion for sweet sounds which she had often +gratified. Many a Sabbath day had he sat in his beetling pulpit and +striven to keep his mind fixed upon the spirit of the hymn alone, in +spite of his leaping pulses, when Madelon's great voice filled the +meeting-house. It was probable that he also, notwithstanding his +Christian grace, shared somewhat the popular sentiments towards these +musical and Bohemian Hautvilles; yet he looked with a dignified +kindness at the girl.</p> + +<p>“I trust you are not ill,” he said, without answering +her question as to whether she might see Dorothy.</p> + +<p>Madelon did not act as if she heard what he said. “Can I see +your daughter, sir?” she repeated. She cast an anxious glance +over her shoulder for fear Eugene might appear in the road.</p> + +<p>Parson Fair still eyed her with perplexity. “I believe +Dorothy is ill in her chamber,” he said, hesitatingly. “I +do not know—”</p> + +<p>Madelon gave a dry sob. “I beg you to let me see her for a +minute, sir,” she gasped out, “for the love of God. It is +life and death!”</p> + +<p>Parson Fair looked shocked and half alarmed. He had not had to do +with women like this, who spoke with such fervor of passion. His +womankind had swathed all their fiercer human emotions with shy +decorum and stern modesty, as Turkish women swathe their faces with +veils.</p> + +<p>Madelon, still under the fear of Eugene, pressed inside the door +as she spoke, and he stood aside half involuntarily. “I beg you +to let me see her,” she repeated. She looked at the stately +wind of the stairs up to the second floor, as if she were minded to +ascend without bidding to Dorothy's chamber.</p> + +<p>“She is ill in her chamber,” the Parson said again, +with a kind of forbidding helplessness.</p> + +<p>“I would see her only for a minute. I beg you to let me, +sir. It is life and death, I tell you—it is life and +death!”</p> + +<p>Whether Parson Fair motioned her to ascend, or whether he simply +stood aside to allow her to pass, he never knew, but Madelon was up +the winding stairs with a swirl of her cloak, as if the wind had +caught it. Parson Fair followed her, and motioned her to the south +front chamber, and was about to rap on the door when it was flung +open violently, and the great black princess stood there, scowling at +them.</p> + +<p>“I have a guest here for your mistress,” said Parson +Fair; but the black woman blocked his way, speaking fast in her +wrathful gibberish.</p> + +<p>However, at a stately gesture from her master she stood aside, and +he held the door open, and Madelon entered. “You had better not +remain long, to tire her,” said the parson, and closed the +door. Immediately the uncouth savage voice was raised high again, and +quelled by the parson's calm tone. Then there was a great settling of +a heavy body close to the threshold. The black woman had thrown +herself at the sill of her darling's door, to keep watch, like a +faithful dog.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville, when she entered Dorothy Fair's room, had her +mind not been fixed upon its one end, which was above all such petty +details of existence, might well have looked about her. No such +dainty maiden bower was there in the whole village as this. Madelon's +own chamber, carpetless and freezing cold, with its sparse furniture +and scanty sweep of white curtains across the furred windows which +filled the room with the blue-white light of frost, was desolation to +it.</p> + +<p>A great fire blazed on Dorothy Fair's chamber hearth. The red glow +of it was over the whole room, and the frost on the windows was +melting. Curtains of a soft blue-and-white stuff, said to have been +brought from overseas, hung at Dorothy's windows and between the high +posts of her bed. She had also her little rocking-chair and footstool +frilled and cushioned with it. There was a fine white matting on her +floor, and a thick rug with a basket of flowers wrought on it beside +her bed. The high white panel-work around Dorothy's mantel was carved +with curving garlands and festoons of ribbon and flowers, and on the +shelf stood tall china vases and bright candlesticks. Dorothy's +dressing-table had a petticoat of finest dimity, trimmed with tiny +tassels. Above it hung her fine oval mirror, in a carved gilt frame. +Upon the table were scattered silver and ivory things and glass +bottles, the like of which Madelon had never seen. The room was full +of that mingled perfume of roses and lavender which was always about +Dorothy herself.</p> + +<p>The counterpane on Dorothy's bed was all white and blue, and +quilted in a curious fashion, and her pillows were edged with lace. +In the midst of this white-and-blue nest, her slender little body +half buried in her great feather-bed, her lovely yellow locks +spreading over her pillow, lay Dorothy Fair when Madelon entered. She +half raised herself, and stared at her with blue, dilated eyes, and +shrank back with a little whimper of terror when she came impetuously +to her bedside.</p> + +<p>“You don't believe it,” Madelon said, with no +preface.</p> + +<p>Dorothy stared at her, trembling. “You +mean—”</p> + +<p>“I mean you don't believe he killed him! You don't believe +Burr Gordon killed his cousin Lot!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy sank weakly back on her pillows. Great tears welled up in +her blue eyes and rolled down her soft cheeks. “They +<em>saw</em> him there,” she sobbed out, “and they found +his knife. Oh, I didn't think he was so wicked!”</p> + +<p>Madelon caught her by one slender arm hard, as if she would have +shaken her. “<em>You</em> believe it!” she cried out. +“You believe that Burr did it—<em>you!</em>”</p> + +<p>“They—saw—him—there,” moaned +Dorothy, with a terrified roll of her tearful eyes at Madelon's +face.</p> + +<p>“<em>Saw him there!</em> What if they did see him there? +What if the whole town saw him? What if you saw him? What if you saw +him strike the blow with your own eyes? Wouldn't you tear them out of +your own head before you believed it? Wouldn't you cut your own +tongue out before you'd bear witness against him?”</p> + +<p>Dorothy sobbed convulsively.</p> + +<p>“I would,” said Madelon.</p> + +<p>Dorothy hid her face away from her in the pillow.</p> + +<p>Madelon laid her hand on her fair head, and turned it with no +gentle hand. “Listen to me now,” she said. “You've +got to listen. You've got to hear what I say. You ought to believe +without being told, without knowing anything about it, that he's +innocent, if you're a woman and love him; but I'm going to tell you. +Burr Gordon didn't kill his cousin Lot. I did!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy gave a faint scream and shrank away from her.</p> + +<p>“I did!” repeated Madelon. “Now do you believe +he's innocent, when somebody else has told you?”</p> + +<p>Dorothy's face was white as her pillows, her eyes big with terror. +There was a soft thud against her door. The black woman was keeping +arduous watch.</p> + +<p>“You couldn't!” Dorothy gasped out.</p> + +<p>“I could! Look at my hands; they are as strong as a +man's.”</p> + +<p>“You—couldn't!”</p> + +<p>“I could, and I did.”</p> + +<p>Dorothy shook her head in hysterical doubt.</p> + +<p>“Listen,” said Madelon—“listen. I'll tell +you why I did it, Dorothy Fair. Burr Gordon had been with me a little +before he went with you. Perhaps you knew it. If you did, I am not +blaming you—he's got taking ways, you couldn't help it; and I +am not blaming him—he's a man, and you're fairer complexioned +than I am. But I was fool enough to be mad without any good +reason—you understand I am not saying anything against him, +Dorothy Fair—when I saw him with you at the ball. He had a +right to take anybody to the ball that he chose. It was naught to me, +but I was mad. I have a quick temper. And I started home when that +young man from Kingston offered to fiddle for the dancing after you +and Burr went out; and my brother Richard made me take his knife for +fear I might meet stragglers, and I had it open under my cloak. And +when I got to that lonely part of the road, after the turn, I saw +somebody coming, and I thought it was Burr. He walked like him. And I +looked away—I did not want to see his face; and when I came up +to him the first thing I knew he threw his arm around me and kissed +me, and—something seemed to leap up in me and I struck with +Richard's knife. And—then he fell down, and I looked and it was +not Burr—it was his cousin Lot. And—then Burr came, and +we heard whistling, and others were coming, and he made me run, and +the others came up and found him; and now they say he did it and not +I. It was I who stabbed Lot Gordon, Dorothy Fair!”</p> + +<p>“It was Burr's knife, with his initials cut in the handle, +that they found,” said Dorothy, with a kind of piteous +doggedness. There was in this fair little maiden the same power of +adherence to a mental attitude which her father had shown in his +religious tenets. Wherever the men and women of this family stood +they were fixed beyond their own capability of motion.</p> + +<p>Madelon gave a bewildered sigh. “I know not how that +was,” said she, “unless—” a red flush mounted +over her whole face. “No, he would not have done that for +me,” she said, as if to herself.</p> + +<p>A red flush on Dorothy's face seemed to respond to that on +Madelon's. “You think he put his knife there to take suspicion +from you?” she cried out, quickly.</p> + +<p>Madelon shook her head. “I don't know about the +knife,” she said, “but I know I stabbed Lot +Gordon.”</p> + +<p>“He would not have done that,” said Dorothy, with +troubled, angry blue eyes on her face. “He would have thought +of—others. He never changed the knife, Madelon +Hautville!”</p> + +<p>“I know nothing about the knife,” repeated Madelon, +“but Burr Gordon did not kill his cousin.”</p> + +<p>“He was there, and it was his knife,” said Dorothy. +There was now a curious indignation in her manner. It was almost as +if she preferred to believe her lover guilty of murder rather than +unduly solicitous for her rival.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville turned upon her with a kind of fierce solemnity. +“Dorothy Fair,” said she, “look at me!” and +the soft, blue-eyed face, full of that gentle unyielding which is the +firmest of all, looked up at her from the +pillows—“Dorothy Fair, did that man, who's locked up over +there in jail in New Salem, for a crime he's innocent of, ever kiss +you?”</p> + +<p>Madelon's face seemed to wax stiff and white. She looked like one +who bared her breast for a mortal hurt as she spoke. Dorothy went +pink to the roots of her yellow hair and the frill on her nightgown. +She made an angry shamed motion of her head, which might have +signified anything.</p> + +<p>“And you can believe this thing of him after that!” +said Madelon, with a look of despairing scorn. “He has kissed +you, Dorothy Fair, and you can think he has committed a +murder!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy gasped. “They said—” she began +again.</p> + +<p>“<em>They said!</em> Are you a woman, Dorothy Fair, and +don't you know that the man you love enough to let him kiss you +should do no wrong in your eyes, or else it's a shame to you, and you +should kill him to wipe it out?” Dorothy shrank away from her +in the bed, her frightened blue eyes staring at her over her +shoulder. “My God! don't you know,” said Madelon, +“the man you love is yourself? When you believe in his guilt +you believe in your own; when you strike him for it you strike +yourself. Don't you know that, Dorothy Fair?”</p> + +<p>Dorothy looked at her, all white and trembling. She gave a +half-sob. Suddenly Madelon's tone changed. “Don't be +afraid,” said she. “I'm different from you. I don't +wonder he liked you better. It's no blame to him. I know you care +about him. You don't believe he did it.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know,” sobbed Dorothy. The door opened a +crack, and the black woman's watchful eyes appeared.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you do know, you do know! I tell you, I did it—I! +Can't you believe me? I'm a wicked woman, and I love anybody I love +in a different way from any that a woman as good as you are can. I +did it, Dorothy, and not Burr! He mustn't suffer for it. We must see +him, you and I together! Don't you believe me?”</p> + +<p>“I don't—know,” sobbed Dorothy. The dark face +appeared quite fully in the door. Madelon cast a quick glance about +the room. Dorothy's pretty Bible, with a blue-silk-ribbon marker +hanging from it, lay on her dimity dressing-table. Madelon sprang +across and got it. The black woman stood in the doorway, muttering to +herself. She looked all ready to spring to Dorothy's defence. Madelon +did not notice her at all. She went close to Dorothy, put the Bible +on the bed, and laid her right hand upon it.</p> + +<p>“I swear upon this Holy Book,” said she, “that +this hand of mine is the one that stabbed Lot Gordon. I swear, and I +call God to witness, and may I be struck dead as I speak if what I +say is not true. Now do you believe what I say, Dorothy +Fair?”</p> + +<p>Dorothy looked at her and the Bible in bewildered terror. She +nodded.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter VIII</h4> + +<p>Something like joy came into Madelon's face. “Then we will +save him, you and I!” she cried out. “We will save him +together! He shall not be hung! He shall be set free! They shall let +him out of jail to-day, and put me there instead. We will save him! +He would not own that I was guilty and he innocent; Lot would not own +it, nor my brother Richard, but now—we will save +him—now!”</p> + +<p>“How?” asked Dorothy, feebly.</p> + +<p>“He will own it to you. Burr will own it to you if you go +and plead with him. He can't help owning it to you. And then you +shall go to Lot, and when you ask him for your sake, that you may +marry Burr, if he knows Burr has told you, and does not care about +me, he will speak. He will be sure to speak for you. Come!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy raised herself on one elbow and stared at Madelon, her +yellow hair falling about her fair startled face. +“Where?” said she.</p> + +<p>“With me to New Salem.”</p> + +<p>“To New Salem?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, to New Salem—to see Burr.”</p> + +<p>“But I am ill, and the doctor has bid me stay in bed. I have +been ill ever since the ball with a headache and fever.”</p> + +<p>“You talk about headache and fever when Burr is there in +prison! I tell you if my two feet were cut off I would walk to him on +the stumps to set him free!”</p> + +<p>“How can I go?” said Dorothy. Her blue eyes kindled a +little under Madelon's fiery zeal.</p> + +<p>“We will take your father's horse and sleigh.”</p> + +<p>“But the horse is gone lame, and has not been used for a +month.”</p> + +<p>“I will get one from Dexter Beers at the tavern,” said +Madelon, promptly. “I will lead him over here and harness him +into the sleigh.”</p> + +<p>“My father will not let me go,” said Dorothy.</p> + +<p>“He is a minister of the gospel—he will let his +daughter go to save a life.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you he will not,” said Dorothy. “I know +my father better than you. He will not let me go out when I am ill. +It is freezing cold, too. If I go I must go without his knowledge and +consent.”</p> + +<p>“I am going without my father's,” said Madelon, +shortly, “and I go at a greater cost than that, too.”</p> + +<p>“It's the second time I have deceived and disobeyed my +father in a week's time,” Dorothy said.</p> + +<p>“You talk about your father when it is +Burr—Burr—that's at stake!” Madelon cried out. +“What is your father to Burr if you love him? That ought to go +before anything else. It says so in your Bible—it says so in +your Bible, Dorothy Fair!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy, with her innocent, frightened eyes fixed upon the other +girl's passionate face, as if she were being led by her into unknown +paths, put back the coverlet and thrust one little white foot out of +bed. Then swiftly the black woman, who had entered the room, backed +against the door as stiffly as a sentinel, darted forward, and would +have thrust her mistress into bed again, making uncouth protests the +while, had not Dorothy motioned her away with a gentle dignity, which +was hers for use when she chose.</p> + +<p>“Go down-stairs, if you please,” said she, “and +see if my father is in his study. If he is in there, and busy over +his sermon, go to the barn, and drag out the sleigh for +us.”</p> + +<p>Dorothy, white and fair as an angel, in her straight linen +nightgown, stood out on the floor, in front of her great black +guardian, who made again as though she would seize her and force her +back, and pleaded with her in a thick drone, like an anxious bee, not +to go.</p> + +<p>“Do as I bid you!” said Dorothy, and glided past her +to her dimity dressing-table, and began combing out her yellow +hair.</p> + +<p>The black woman went out, muttering.</p> + +<p>“If my father is in his study on the north side of the +house, and busy over his sermon, we can get away; otherwise we +cannot,” said Dorothy, combing the thick tress over her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>Madelon went to a south window of the room and looked out. She +could see the barn, and across the road, farther down, the tavern. +She watched while Dorothy bound up her hair, and soon she saw the +black woman run, with a low crouch of her great body like a stealthy +animal, across the yard.</p> + +<p>“Your father is in his study,” Madelon said, quickly. +“I will go over to the tavern for a horse if yours is too +lame.”</p> + +<p>“He can scarce stand,” said Dorothy. Her soft voice +trembled; she trembled all over—then was still with nervous +rigors. Bright pink spots were on her cheeks. A certain girlish +daring was there in this gentle maiden for youthful love and +pleasure, else she had not stolen away that night to the ball, but +very little for tragic enterprise. And, moreover, her fine sense of +decorum and womanly pride had always served her mainly in the place +of courage, which she lacked.</p> + +<p>Sorely afraid was Dorothy Fair, if the truth were told, to go with +this passionate girl, who had declared to her face she had done +murder, to visit a man who she still half believed, with her helpless +tenacity of thought, was a murderer also. The love she had hitherto +felt for him was eclipsed by terror at the new image of him which her +fearful fancy had conjured up and could not yet dismiss, in spite of +Madelon's assurances. She was, too, really ill, and her delicate +nerves were still awry from the shock they had received the night of +the ball. Parson Fair had been sternly indignant, and his daughter +had quailed before him, and then had come the news concerning Burr. +Sage tea, and hot foot-baths, and the doctor's nostrums had not cured +her yet. Her very spirit trembled and fluttered at this undertaking; +but she could not withstand this fierce and ardent girl who upbraided +her with the cowardice and distrust of her love. Instinctively she +tried to raise her sentiment to the standard of the other's and +believe in Burr.</p> + +<p>Madelon paused a second as she went out, and gave a strange, +scrutinizing glance at her.</p> + +<p>“Why do you not wear your blue-silk quilted hood with the +swan's-down trimming?” said she. “It becomes you, and it +is warm over your ears.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I will,” said Dorothy, looking at her +wonderingly.</p> + +<p>Madelon went softly out of the house, and ran across and down the +road to the tavern. Dexter Beers, the landlord, was just going around +the wide sweep of drive to the stable with a meal-sack over his +shoulder. No one else was in sight; it was so cold there were no +loafers about. Madelon ran after him, and overtook him before he +reached the stable door.</p> + +<p>“Can you let me take a horse?” said she, abruptly.</p> + +<p>Dexter Beers looked slowly around at her with a quick roll of a +black eye in a massive face. He had an enormous bulk, which he moved +about with painful sidewise motions. His voice was husky.</p> + +<p>“What d'ye want a horse for?” said he.</p> + +<p>“I want it to put in Parson Fair's sleigh.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“To take Dorothy to ride.”</p> + +<p>“Parson's horse lame yet?”</p> + +<p>Madelon nodded.</p> + +<p>“Where's yours?”</p> + +<p>“I can't have him.”</p> + +<p>Dexter Beers still moved on with curious lateral twirls of his +shoulders and heaves of his great chest, with its row of shining +waistcoat buttons.</p> + +<p>“Pooty cold day for a sleigh-ride,” he observed, with +a great steam of breath.</p> + +<p>“I'll pay you well for the horse,” said Madelon, in a +hard voice. She followed him into the stable. He heaved the meal-sack +from his shoulder to the floor with a grunt. Another man came forward +with a peck measure in his hand. He was young, with a frosty yellow +mustache. He had gone to school with Madelon and knew her well, but +he looked at her with uncouth shyness without speaking. Then he began +unfastening the mouth of the sack.</p> + +<p>Madelon stepped forward impatiently towards the horse-stalls. +There were the relay of coach-horses, great grays and bays, champing +their feed, getting ready for their sure-footed rushes over the +mountain roads when the coaches came in. She passed them by with +sharp glances.</p> + +<p>A man whose face was purplish red with cold was out in the rear of +the stable, rubbing down a restive bay with loud “whoas,” +and now and then a stronger word and a hard twitch at the halter. He +looked curiously at Madelon as she walked up to one of the +stalls.</p> + +<p>“Better look out for them heels!” he called out, as +she drew nearer. She paid no heed, but went straight into the stall, +untied the horse, and began to back him out. “Hi, there!” +the man shouted, and Dexter Beers and the young man came hurrying up. +“Better look out for that gal—I believe she's gone +crazy!” he called out. “I can't leave this darned +beast—she'll get kicked to death if she don't look out. That +old white won't stan' a woman in the stall. Whoa, there! whoa, darn +ye! Stan' still!”</p> + +<p>“Hullo, what ye doin' of?” demanded Dexter Beers, +coming up.</p> + +<p>Madelon calmly backed the horse out of his stall. “I want to +hire this horse,” said she, holding his halter with a firm +hand.</p> + +<p>“That horse?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I'll pay you whatever you ask.”</p> + +<p>Dexter Beers stared at her and the horse dubiously. “Jest as +soon set a woman to drivin' the devil as that old white,” +volunteered the man who was cleaning the bay. The young man stood +gaping with wonder.</p> + +<p>“Can I have this horse or not?” demanded Madelon. Her +black eyes flashed imperiously at Dexter Beers. Her small brown hand +held the halter of the old white with a grasp like steel.</p> + +<p>“Dunno 'bout your drivin' that horse,” said Dexter +Beers. “'Fraid you'll get run away with. Better take +another.”</p> + +<p>“Isn't this horse the fastest you've got on a short +stretch?”</p> + +<p>“S'pose he is, but I dunno 'bout a woman's drivin' of +him.”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked as if she were half minded to spring upon the back +of the old white and settle the matter summarily. She fairly quivered +with impatience.</p> + +<p>“A woman who can drive David Hautville's roan can drive this +horse, and you know it,” said she. She moved forward as she +spoke, leading the high-stepping old white, and Dexter Beers stood +aside.</p> + +<p>“Well, David Hautville's roan is nigh a match for this +one,” he grunted, hesitatingly, “but then ye know your +own better. Hadn't ye better—”</p> + +<p>But the old white was out of the stable at a trot, with Madelon +running alongside.</p> + +<p>“Don't ye want a man to hitch him up?” Dexter Beers +called after her; but she was out of hearing.</p> + +<p>“If the gal's ekal to drivin' that horse, she's ekal to +hitchin' of him up,” said the man who was cleaning the bay. +“If a gal wants to drive, let her hitch. Ye'd better let a +woman go the whole figger when she gits started, just as ye'd better +give an ugly cuss of a horse his head up hill an' down. It takes the +mischief out of 'em quicker'n anything. Let her go it, +Dexter—don't ye fret.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want her breakin' any of the parson's daughter's +bones with none of my horses,” said Dexter Beers, uneasily. +“Wonder where the parson is?”</p> + +<p>“Let 'em go it! They won't git smashed up, I guess,” +said the other. “I've seen that gal of Hautville's with that +mare of his'n. She kin drive most anythin' short of the devil, an' +old white's got sense enough to know when he's well driv, ugly's he +is. He wa'n't on the track for nothin'. He ain't no wuss, if he's as +bad, as that roan mare. Let 'em <em>go</em> it!”</p> + +<p>“Wonder what's to pay?” said the young man, who had +not spoken before.</p> + +<p>“Dunno,” said Dexter Beers. “Somethin's to +pay—that girl acted queer.”</p> + +<p>“S'pose she takes it hard 'bout Burr Gordon. He used to fool +'round her, I've heerd, afore he went courtin' the parson's +gal.”</p> + +<p>“Dunno—queer she's so thick with the parson's gal all +of a sudden.”</p> + +<p>“Lord, I wouldn't tech a gal that could git the upperhand of +a horse like that roan mare with a ten-foot pole,” half +soliloquized the man at work over the bay. “Wouldn't have her +if she owned half the township, an' went down on her knees to +me—darned if I would. Don't want no woman that kin make +horse-flesh like that knuckle under. Guess a man wouldn't have much +show; hev to take his porridge 'bout the way she wanted to make it. +Whoa, there! stan' still, can't ye? Darned if I want nothin' to do +with sech woman folks or sech horses as ye be.”</p> + +<p>Dexter Beers moved laboriously out to the stable door and peered +after Madelon, but she had disappeared in Parson Fair's yard. The +white horse had gone up the road at a brisk trot, but she had easily +kept pace with him. She also harnessed him into the sleigh with no +difficulty. The animal seemed docile, and as if he were to belie his +hard reputation. There was, however, a proud and nervous cant to his +old white head, and he set his jaw stiffly against his bit.</p> + +<p>Dorothy came out in her quilted silk pelisse and her blue hood +edged with swan's-down, and got into the sleigh. The black woman was +keeping watch at the parson's study door the while, but he never +swerved from his hard application of the doctrines. The sleigh +slipped noiselessly out of the yard and up the road, for Madelon had +not put on the bells. The old white went rather stiffly and steadily +for the first quarter-mile; then he made a leap forward with a great +lift of his lean white flanks, and they flew.</p> + +<p>Dorothy gave a terrified gasp. “Don't be frightened,” +Madelon said. “It's the horse that used to beat everything in +the county. He's old now, but when he gets warmed up he's the fastest +horse around for a short stretch. He can't hold out long, but while +he does he goes; and I want to get a good start. I want to strike the +New Salem road as soon as I can.”</p> + +<p>Madelon had a growing fear lest Eugene might have freed himself, +and might ride the roan across by a shorter cut, and so intercept her +at the turn into the New Salem road. He might easily suspect her of +attempting to see Burr again. If she passed the turn first she could +probably escape him if her horse held out; and, indeed, he might not +think she had gone that way if he did not see her.</p> + +<p>Dorothy held fast to the side of the sleigh, which seemed to rise +from the track as they sped on. “Don't be frightened,” +Madelon said again. “This is the only horse in town that can +beat my father's on a short stretch, and I don't know that he can +always, but I don't think he has been used, and father's was ridden +hard yesterday. I can manage this one in harness better than I can +father's. Don't be frightened.” But Dorothy's face grew pale +as the swan's-down around it, and her great blue eyes were fixed +fearfully upon the bounding heels and flanks of the old white +race-horse.</p> + +<p>Madelon strained her eyes ahead as they neared the turn of the New +Salem road. There was nobody in sight. Then she glanced across the +fields at the right. Suddenly she swung out the reins over the back +of the old white, and hallooed, and stood up in the sleigh.</p> + +<p>Dorothy screamed faintly. “Sit still and hold on!” +Madelon shouted. Dorothy shut her eyes. It seemed to her she was +being hurled through space. Her slender body swung to and fro against +the sleigh as she clung frantically to it.</p> + +<p>Eugene Hautville, on the roan, was coming at a mad run across the +open field on the right towards the turn of the road. It seemed for a +second as if Madelon would reach it before he did; but they met +there, and the roan reared to a stop in the narrow road directly in +front of the old white, who plunged furiously.</p> + +<p>“Look out there!” shouted Eugene, as the sleigh tilted +on the snow-crust. The old white's temper was up at this sudden +check, but the woman behind him had a stronger will than he. She +brought him to a straining halt, and then she spoke to her +brother.</p> + +<p>“You let us pass!” she said, sternly.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” he demanded. He looked uneasily +at Dorothy as he spoke. It was easy enough to see that she was a +restraint upon him, and that fair, timid face in its blue hood held +his indignation well in check.</p> + +<p>“We are going to New Salem,” replied Madelon. +“Let us pass.”</p> + +<p>“I want to know what you are going for,” said Eugene; +and he tried to speak with fire, but he still looked furtively at +Dorothy.</p> + +<p>Nobody had ever suspected how that lovely face of hers had been in +his dreams, unless it had been for a time Dorothy herself. Nobody had +noticed in meeting, of a Sabbath day long since, when Dorothy had +first returned from her Boston school, sundry glances which had +passed between a pair of soft blue eyes in the parson's pew and a +pair of fiery black ones in the singing-seats.</p> + +<p>Dorothy, half guiltily in those days, had arranged her curls and +tied on her Sunday bonnets with a view to Eugene Hautville's eyes; +and always, when she returned from meeting, had gone straight to her +looking-glass, to be sure that she had looked fair in them. But +nobody had ever known, and scarcely she herself.</p> + +<p>She had come to think later that she had perhaps been mistaken, +for never had Eugene made other advances to her than by those ardent +glances; and Burr had come, and she had turned to him, and thought of +Eugene Hautville only when he crossed her way, and then with a +mixture of pique and shame. Never by any chance did her eyes meet his +nowadays of a Sabbath day, and she listened coldly to his sweet tenor +in the hymns. Now, suddenly, she looked straight up in his face and +met his eyes, and a pink flush came into her white cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Please to let us pass,” she said, in her gentle tone, +which had yet a tincture of command in it. Any woman as fair as she, +who has a right understanding of her looking-glass, has, however soft +she may be, the instincts of a queen within her. She felt a proud +resentment for her own old folly and for Eugene's old slighting of +her, and indignation at his present attitude as she looked up at him +with sudden daring.</p> + +<p>Eugene threw back his head haughtily. “She wants to see Burr +Gordon,” he thought, and would have died rather than let her +think he would stand in the way of it. He jerked the roan aside, and +seemed as if he would have been flung into the way-side bushes with +her curving plunge.</p> + +<p>“Pass, if you wish,” he said, with a graceful bend in +his saddle, and was past them, riding the other way towards the +village.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter IX</h4> + +<p>When they reached the county buildings, the court-house and the +jail, in New Salem, the old race-horse was still not nearly spent, +although he breathed somewhat hard. When Madelon sprang out to +blanket and tie him he seemed to vibrate to her touch like electric +steel, and showed that the old fire had not yet died out of his +nerves and muscles.</p> + +<p>Poor Dorothy Fair's knees were weak under her as she got out of +the sleigh. Her pretty face was pitiful, her sweet mouth drooping at +the corners like a troubled child's.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at her sharply when they stood before the jail door +waiting for admittance. “I have seen you wear a curl each side +of your face outside your hood,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I didn't think of it to-day,” Dorothy replied, with +forlorn surprise.</p> + +<p>Madelon went close to the other girl peremptorily, as if she had +been her mother, pulled forward two soft curls from under her hood, +and arranged them becomingly against the pale cheeks; and Dorothy +submitted.</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead opened the jail door, and his great face took on a +forbidding scowl when he saw Madelon Hautville.</p> + +<p>“Can't let ye in,” he said, gruffly. “Ain't a +visitin' day.” He would have shut the door in their faces had +not Madelon made a quick spring against it.</p> + +<p>“I don't want to come in!” she cried. “I don't +want to see him to-day. It's this lady who wants to see +him.”</p> + +<p>“Can't see nobody,” said Alvin Mead, filling up the +door like a surly living wedge.</p> + +<p>“You must let us see him,” persisted Madelon. +“She's Parson Fair's daughter. She is going to marry Burr +Gordon—she must see him.”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead shook his head stubbornly. Then Dorothy spoke, +thrusting her fair face forward, and looking up at him with +terrified, innocent pleading, like a child, and yet speaking with a +gentle lady's authority. “I beg you to let me come in, only for +a few moments,” said she. “I will not make you any +trouble. I will come out directly when you bid me to.”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead looked at her a second, then at Madelon with rough +inquiry. “Who did ye say she was?” he growled.</p> + +<p>“Parson Fair's daughter, the lady that's going to marry Burr +Gordon.”</p> + +<p>“I can't let but one of ye see him, and she can't stay +more'n ten minutes,” said Alvin Mead, and moved aside, and +Madelon and Dorothy entered.</p> + +<p>They followed Alvin Mead down the icy, dark corridor to Burr's +cell door. He unlocked it, and bade Dorothy enter. He cast a +forbidding look at Madelon. “I will stand here,” she said +with a strange meekness, almost as if her heart were broken; but when +the jailer prepared to follow Dorothy into Burr's cell she caught him +by the arm and tried to force him back, and cried out sharply that he +should let her see him alone. “She is the girl he is going to +marry, I tell you!” she said. “Let them see each other +alone. You cannot come between two like that when they are in such +trouble.”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead looked at her a second irresolutely. Then he stepped +back in the corridor and locked the cell door. “That the gal? +Thought ye was the one,” he said, with a half-chuckle, with +coarse, sharp eyes upon her face.</p> + +<p>“He is going to marry her,” Madelon repeated. She +stood stiff and straight like a statue, and waited. Once, when Alvin +made an impatient motion as though to open the door, she restrained +him with such despairing eagerness that he drew back and looked at +her wonderingly, and stood in surly silence awhile longer.</p> + +<p>“She's got to come out now,” he said, at last. +“I've got other things to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, +nohow.” He unlocked the door and threw it open with a jerk. +“Time's up!” he shouted, and Dorothy came out directly, +almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead clapped to the door +with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she tried, could not +have got a glimpse of Burr; but she did not try. She sprang at +Dorothy Fair, and took her by the shoulders, and looked into her +scared face with agonized questioning.</p> + +<p>“Did—he confess?” she gasped out. +“Did—he tell you, did he—tell you, Dorothy +Fair?”</p> + +<p>Dorothy shook her head in a mute terror that was almost horror. It +seemed as if she would sink to the floor under Madelon's heavy hands. +Alvin Mead stood staring at them.</p> + +<p>“Didn't he—tell you—I was the one +who—stabbed Lot? Didn't he—tell you?”</p> + +<p>“She's at it again,” muttered Alvin Mead.</p> + +<p>Dorothy shook her head. “He wouldn't speak,” she said, +faintly. “He would say nothing about it.”</p> + +<p>Madelon fairly shook her. “Couldn't you make him speak? +<em>You!</em>”</p> + +<p>“I couldn't, I couldn't, Madelon!”</p> + +<p>“Did you tell him your heart would break if he +didn't—that you couldn't marry him if he didn't?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—don't, don't—look at me so, +Madelon.”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead stepped forward. “Look at here—you're +scarin' of that gal to death,” he interfered. “You'd +better take your hands off her.”</p> + +<p>Then Madelon turned to him, and grasped at the keys in his hands, +as if she would wrest them from him. “Unlock the door and let +me in, and let Burr Gordon out!” she demanded, wildly.</p> + +<p>The jailer wrested his keys away with a contemptuous jerk, and +took the skin from Madelon's hands with them. “You're +crazy,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I am not crazy! You've got an innocent man locked up in +there, and I, who am guilty and tell you so, you will not arrest. It +is you who are crazy. Let me in!”</p> + +<p>Alvin Mead laid a rough hand on Madelon's shoulder. “Now you +look at here, gal,” said he. “I've had about all this +darned nonsense I'm a-goin' to stan'. That chap is in jail for +murder, an' in jail he's a-goin' to stay till I git orders from +somebody besides you to let him out. An' what's more, don't you come +here on no sich tom-fool arrant agin. If you do you won't git in. I +ain't no objection to gals he was goin' to marry ef he hadn't broke +the laws comin' to see him a leetle spell, if they'll go away +peaceable when they're bid, but as for havin' sech highstericky work +as this, I'll be darned if I will. Now I can't stan' here foolin' no +longer; you'd better be gittin' right along home, an' don't you break +this other gal's neck with that old stepper you've got out +there.”</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville said not another word. She went out of the jail +quickly, and she and Dorothy were soon in the sleigh and flying down +the road. The old racer was not so old nor so weary that the impetus +of the homeward stretch failed to stir him—for a mile or so, at +least. After that his pace slackened, and then Madelon turned to the +other girl, who looked up at her with a kind of piteous defiance. +“What did you say to him?” she demanded.</p> + +<p>“I—begged him—if he—did not kill Lot +to—say so,” replied Dorothy, faintly; then she shrank and +quivered before the other girl, who started wrathfully, half as if +she would fling her from the sleigh.</p> + +<p>“<em>If</em> he did not kill Lot to say so!” repeated +Madelon. “<em>If</em> he did not! You know he did +not.”</p> + +<p>“He would not tell me so,” said Dorothy, with her +stubbornness of meekness, and her blue eyes met Madelon's, although +there were tears welling up in them.</p> + +<p>“Tell you so!” cried Madelon. “What are you made +of, Dorothy Fair?”</p> + +<p>“He would not,” repeated Dorothy. “If he +<em>was</em> innocent, why should he not have told me if he loved +me?”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at her. “You don't love him!” she cried +out, sharply. “You don't love him, and that's why. You don't +love him, Dorothy Fair!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy flushed red and drew herself up with gentle stiffness. +“You cannot expect me to unveil my heart to you,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“You have betrayed it,” persisted Madelon. “You +don't love him, Dorothy Fair! Shame on you, after all!”</p> + +<p>“What right have you to say that?” demanded Dorothy, +and this time with some show of anger.</p> + +<p>“The right of another woman who does love him, and would +save his life,” Madelon answered, fiercely. “The right of +a woman who can love more in an hour than such as you in a +lifetime!”</p> + +<p>“You—don't know—”</p> + +<p>“I do know. You don't love him or you would not have +distrusted him. You would have made him tell you the truth. You would +have flung your arms around him, and you would not have let him go +until he told you. Did you do that? Answer me: did you do +that?”</p> + +<p>A great wave of red crept over Dorothy's face, but she replied, +with cold dignity: “I throw my arms around no man +unbidden!”</p> + +<p>“Unbidden!” repeated Madelon, and scorn seemed to +sound in her voice like the lash of a whip. She flung out the reins +over the horse's back, and they slipped along swiftly over the icy +crust, and not another word did she speak to Dorothy Fair all the way +home.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter X</h4> + +<p>When they entered Parson Fair's south yard there was a swift +disappearance of a dark face from a window, and the door was flung +open, and the grimly faithful servant-woman came forth and lifted +Dorothy out of the sleigh, crooning the while in tender and angry +gutturals. Poor Dorothy Fair shook like a white flower in a wind, for +beside the rigor of the cold, which seemed to pierce her very soul, +the chill of fever was still upon her. She chattered helplessly when +she tried to speak, and there were sobs in her throat. The black +woman half carried her into the house, and up-stairs to her own +chamber, where the hearth-fire was blazing bright. She covered her up +warm in bed, with a hot brick at her feet, and dosed her with warm +herb drinks, and coddled her, until, after some piteous weeping, she +fell asleep.</p> + +<p>But for Madelon Hautville there was no rest and no sleep. She felt +not the cold, and if she had fever in her veins the fierce disregard +of her straining spirit was beyond it. No knowledge of her body at +all had Madelon Hautville, no knowledge of anything on earth except +her one aim—to save her lover's life. She was nothing but a +purpose concentrated upon one end; there was in her that great +impetus of the human will which is above all the swift forces of the +world when once it is aroused.</p> + +<p>She unharnessed the horse quickly from the parson's sleigh, and +led him, restive again at the near prospect of his stall and feed, +back to the tavern stable, paid for him, and struck out on the +homeward road, straight and swift as one of her Indian ancestors. A +group of men in the stable door stood aside with curious alacrity to +let her pass; they stared after her, then at each other.</p> + +<p>“I swan!” said one.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn't like to be in the way when that gal was headed +anywheres,” said another.</p> + +<p>“If that gal belonged to me I'd get her some stronger +bits,” said the man who had been cleaning the bay horse when +Madelon came for the white.</p> + +<p>“I believe she's lost her mind,” said the +tavern-keeper. “It's the last time I'll ever let her have a +horse, and I told her so.” There came a blast of northwest +wind which buffeted them about their faces and chests like an icy +flail, and they scattered before it, some to their duties in the +stable, some into the warm tavern for a mug of something hot to do +away with the chill. It was too cold a day to gossip in a doorway. It +was not long past noon, but the cold had seemed to strengthen as the +sun rode higher. The wind blew from the icy northwest more frequently +in fiercer gusts. Madelon Hautville sped along before it, her red +cloak flying out like a flag, and took no thought of it at all. She +was, while still in the flesh and upon the earth, so intensified in +spirit that there existed for her consciousness neither heat nor +cold. She reached the old road, the short-cut, stretched down through +the stiff white woods to her own home; she hastened along it a little +way, then she stopped and faced back and stood irresolute. The icy +wind stiffened her face, but she did not note it. She looked back at +the road with its blue snow-furrows stretching between the desolate +woods, at the spires and roofs of the village beyond. If one followed +that road to the village and took the first one upon the right, and +travelled ten miles, one would come to the town of Kingston.</p> + +<p>Madelon began moving along on the road to the village, vaguely at +first, as if half in a dream, then with gathering purpose. Back she +went, in her tracks, straight to the village and the tavern stable, +and asked of Dexter Beers another horse to drive to Kingston. But he +refused her, standing before her, blocking the stable door, looking +aside with a kind of timid doggedness. “Can't let ye have +another horse to-day nohow,” said he; “too cold to let +'em out.”</p> + +<p>“I'll pay you well,” said Madelon.</p> + +<p>“Pay ain't no object. Can't let none of 'em out but the +stage-horses in no sech weather as this.” Still Dexter Beers +did not look at Madelon's stern and angry eyes; he gazed intently at +a post in an icy slant of snow in the yard on the left.</p> + +<p>He had the usual masculine dread of an angry woman, and, moreover, +he had a sharp-tongued wife, but he had also the masculine tenacity +of a position. He stared at the post as if his spirit held fast to +it, and braced itself against the torrent of feminine wrath which he +expected; but it did not come. Madelon Hautville set her mouth hard, +wrapped her red cloak around her with a firm gesture, as if she were +a soldier about to start on a long march, and walked out of the yard +and up the road without another word.</p> + +<p>“I swan!” said Dexter Beers.</p> + +<p>The red-faced hostler approached with a pail in each hand bound +for the well; he was watering the coach-horses for the next relay. +“What's up?” he inquired, pushing past him.</p> + +<p>“I'll be darned if I don't believe that gal of Hautville's +has started to walk to Kingston, 'cause I wouldn't let her have +another horse!”</p> + +<p>“Let her go it,” droned the red-faced man, with a +short chuckle.</p> + +<p>“Hope she won't freeze her feet nor nothin',” said +Dexter Beers, uneasily.</p> + +<p>“Let her <em>go</em> it!” said the red-faced man, +swinging across the yard with his pails.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville walked on steadily. She reached the right-hand +turn, and then she was on the direct Kingston road, with a ten-mile +stretch before her. It was past one o'clock, and she could not reach +her journey's end much before dark.</p> + +<p>About two miles after the turn of the road the more thickly set +habitations ceased, and there were only isolated farm-houses, with +long, sloping reaches of woods and pasture-lands between. The +pasture-lands were hummocked with ice-coated rocks and hooped with +frozen vines; they seemed to flow down in glittering waves, like +glaciers, over the hill-sides. The woods stood white and petrified, +as woods might have done in a glacial era. There was no sound in them +except now and then the crack of a bough under the weight of ice, and +slow, painful responses, like the twangs of rusty harp-strings, to +the harder gusts of wind. The cold was so intense that the ice did +not melt in the noonday sun, and there were no soft droppings and +gurglings to modify this rigor of white light and sound. Occasionally +a rabbit crossed Madelon's path, silent as a little gray scudding +shadow, and so swiftly that he did not reach one's consciousness +until he was out of sight. There was seldom a winter bird, even, in +sight. The ice on the trees and the pastures had locked and sealed +their larders. Their little beaks could not pierce it for seeds and +grubs, and so they were forced to repair to kitchen doors and +barnyards in quest of stray crumbs from the provender of men and +cattle.</p> + +<p>The rabbits, and an ox-team drawing a sled laden with cedar logs, +slipping with shrill, long squeaks over the white road, driven by a +man with a red face in an ambush of frozen beard, were all the living +things she met for the first four miles. The man clambered stiffly +down from his sled just before he met her, and began walking, +stamping, rubbing his ears, and swinging his arms violently the +while. He stared hard at Madelon, and gave a sort of grunt as he +passed. It was an instinctive note of comradeship with another in a +situation hard for their common humanity. The man, toiling painfully +along that hard road, on that bitter day, with hands and feet half +frost-bitten, and face smarting as if with fire, his aching lungs +straining with the icy air, felt that he and the woman struggling +over the same road had common cause for wrath against this stress of +nature, and so made that half-surly, half-sympathetic grunt as he +passed her. But she did not respond. She did not even glance at him +as she went along. Her face glowed all over, red as a rose with the +freezing wind; she wrapped her cloak instinctively tight around her, +and walked a little stiffly, as if her feet might be somewhat numb; +but there was in her fixed dark eyes no recognition of anything but +some end she had in view beyond his ken.</p> + +<p>The man stopped and looked seriously after her, and past her down +the road. “Wonder what she's up to!” he muttered. Then he +struggled on after his oxen, who plodded along with goat's-beards of +their frozen breath hanging from their jaws.</p> + +<p>Two miles farther on there was a sudden loud blast of a horn, and +following upon it a great jangle of bells and the tramp of hoofs, and +Madelon knew the Ware and Kingston stage was coming. Presently the +top of the coach and the leaders' heads appeared above the rise of +the road, and Madelon stood well aside to meet it, pressing in among +the crackling icy bushes.</p> + +<p>There was another blast of the horn, then a wild rush of +sure-footed horses down the hill, and the coach was past, going +towards Ware. Madelon had caught only a glimpse of the frost-white +driver on the box, a man beside him shrugged up miserably in +great-coat and comforter, with back rounded and head bent against the +cold, and some chilled faces in the windows. Some of the passengers +had come from Wolverton, ten miles past Kingston, and one might +freeze to death on a long stage journey a day like that. There was, +perhaps, less danger in a walk, but there was danger in that should +the cold increase, and it did increase hourly. Madelon's feet grew +more and more numb. She stamped them from time to time, but more from +instinct than from any real appreciation of the discomfort they gave +her. So wrought up was she with zeal that it seemed she might have +set out to walk through a fiery furnace as soon as through this +frozen waste, and perhaps have had her flesh consumed to ashes, with +her soul still intent upon its one purpose. All thought of her own +self, save as an instrument to save the life of the man she loved, +was gone out of the girl. Jealousy was purged out of her; all +resentment for faithlessness, all longing for possession were gone. +She bore in her heart the greatest love of her life as she sped along +down the frozen road to Kingston.</p> + +<p>The last two miles of the way poor Madelon struggled hard to +cover. She drew short, gasping breaths, as if she were on a high +mountain-top. The cold strengthened as the daylight waned. The very +air seemed frozen and resolved into a cutting diamond-dust of frost. +Suddenly Madelon awoke to the fear that she could not walk much +farther. She had eaten nothing since morning; the cold and fatigue +were consuming her life as the flame consumes the wick of the lamp +when the oil is lacking.</p> + +<p>“I must get there!” she said to herself. She stamped +her numb feet desperately. She beat herself pitilessly with her stiff +hands. She set forth on a run towards Kingston, and quickened her +blood a little in that way, although she panted and fairly gasped for +breath.</p> + +<p>She drew a sigh of relief when she gained the last rise in the +road, and the town of Kingston lay before her a mile in the valley. +It was growing dark and the village lights were coming out when she +had passed the straggling farms and come into the little centre of +the town where the stores, the meeting-houses, and the tavern were +grouped.</p> + +<p>The village main street looked almost deserted. There was only one +sleigh in sight, drawn up in front of the store. The horse was well +covered with a buffalo-skin and an old bed-quilt in addition, which +his master's wife had doubtless provided on account of the terrible +cold.</p> + +<p>As Madelon reached the store a man came out with a molasses-jug in +hand and arms clasping parcels, which he began stowing away under the +seat of the sleigh. Madelon went up to him. “Can you tell me +where Mr. Otis lives?” said she. She could scarcely enunciate. +Her very tongue seemed stiff with the cold.</p> + +<p>The man turned and stared at her with sharp blue eyes under red +brows frost-white between his cap and twice-wound red tippet. +“Hey?” he said, in a muffled voice.</p> + +<p>“Can you tell me where Mr. Otis lives?”</p> + +<p>“Otis?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Which Otis d'ye mean? There's two Otises. D'ye mean Calvin +Otis or Jim Otis?”</p> + +<p>“He has a son that plays the fiddle,” answered +Madelon, faintly.</p> + +<p>“Then it's Jim ye mean. He died last year. He had a son Jim +that plays the fiddle. Lives down the road on the left-hand side, +five houses below the meeting-house. House with three popple-trees in +front—sets close to the road.”</p> + +<p>Madelon started, but the man's voice arrested her. “You look +most froze,” said he. “Hadn't ye better go in there an' +warm up?” He pointed towards the store-windows with a rosy +glow of light and warmth transfusing their thick layers of frost. +“It's pipin' hot in there—warm ye all through in a +minute. It's a terrible cold night. Old man in there, lived 'round +these parts risin' eighty years, says he never knew sech a night. +Better just step in there.”</p> + +<p>Madelon shook her head and started on.</p> + +<p>“Where did ye come from?” called the man.</p> + +<p>“Ware Centre,” Madelon gasped out, as the freezing +wind struck her.</p> + +<p>“Good Lord! you don't mean to say you've walked risin' ten +mile from Ware Centre a day like this!”</p> + +<p>Madelon was gone, bending before the wind, without another +word.</p> + +<p>“Good Lord!” said the man, “a woman walkin' from +Ware Centre this weather!” He stood staring after the girls' +retreating figure; then he started to unblanket his horse. But he +stopped and stared again, and finally went into the store to tell the +news.</p> + +<p>Madelon kept on as fast as she was able, but she was nearly spent. +Her exultation of spirit might indeed survive fleshly exhaustion and +perhaps in a measure overcome it, but it could not prevent it +altogether. When she reached the fifth house below the white +meeting-house, the house set close to the road, with three +poplar-trees in front, she had just strength enough to stagger to the +door and raise the knocker. Then she leaned against the door-post, +and it was only with a fierce effort that she kept her grasp upon her +consciousness. She did not seem to feel her body at all.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XI</h4> + +<p>Presently a bolt was shot and the door pushed open with an effort. +It was little used, and there was ice against it. Then a man's face +peered out irresolutely into the dusk. A knock upon the front door, +upon a night like this, seemed so unlikely that he doubted if he had +heard rightly.</p> + +<p>“Anybody here?” he said. Then he saw the woman's +figure propped stiffly against the door-post. “Who is +it?” he asked, in a startled voice. “Is it you, Mrs. +Lane?”</p> + +<p>Madelon aroused herself. “I want to see Mr. Otis's son a +minute if I can,” she said, with a great effort. Then she +raised her piteous eyes to the face before her, and realized dimly +that it was the face of the young man who had taken her place at the +ball, and sent her homeward to work all this misery on that dreadful +night.</p> + +<p>“I am Mr. Otis's son,” returned the young man, +wonderingly. “What”—then he gave a +cry—“why, it is you!”</p> + +<p>“I want—to—see you—a minute,” said +Madelon, and her voice sounded far away in her own ears.</p> + +<p>The young man started. “Why, you're half frozen,” he +cried out, “and here I am keeping you standing out here! Come +in.”</p> + +<p>Madelon shrank back. “No,” she faltered, +“I—only want to ask—”</p> + +<p>But Jim Otis took her by the arm with gentle force, and she was so +spent that she could but let him have his way, and lead her into the +house and the warm living-room, staggering under his supporting +clasp.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” called Jim Otis—“mother, come +here, quick!” He placed Madelon tenderly on the settle, and +his mother came hurriedly out of the pantry.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” she asked. “What is the matter, +Jim? Who was it knocked? Why, who's that?”</p> + +<p>Madelon leaned back helplessly in the corner of the settle, her +head hanging half unconsciously. The young man stooped over her and +unfastened her cloak and hood. “Come here, quick, +mother!” he cried, and his voice was as sweet with pity as a +woman's. “This poor girl is half dead with the cold.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Otis, large and fair-faced, with her soft, massive curves +swathed in purple thibet, stared for a second in speechless wonder. +“Who is it? How did she get here?” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“Hush—I don't know. She's from Ware Centre. Her name's +Hautville.”</p> + +<p>“Seems to me I've heard of her. What has she come here for, +Jim?”</p> + +<p>“Hush—I don't know. She'll hear you. Go and get +something hot for her to drink. I saw her at the ball the other +night. Go quick, mother.”</p> + +<p>“I'll get her some brandy cordial,” said Mrs. Otis, +with sudden alacrity. She needed time always to get her mental +bearing thoroughly in any emergency, but action was prompt +afterwards. She made a quick motion towards the cupboard, but Madelon +aroused herself suddenly. Her senses had lapsed for a few minutes +upon coming into the warm room. “Where am I?” she asked, +in a bewildered way.</p> + +<p>“In our house,” replied Mrs. Otis, promptly. +“Jim just brought you in, and it's lucky you come just as you +did, for I don't know but you'd froze to death if you'd been out much +longer. Now, I'll get you some of my brandy cordial, and that'll warm +you right up. Did you come way over from Ware Centre this dreadful +night?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am,” replied Madelon, with the dazed look +still in her eyes. Mrs. Otis looked back on her way to the +cupboard.</p> + +<p>“Rode way over from Ware Centre in an open sleigh?” +she said.</p> + +<p>“No, ma'am; I walked.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Otis stopped and looked at Madelon with a gasp, then at her +son. “She's out of her head, I'm afraid,” said she.</p> + +<p>“You didn't really walk over from Ware Centre?” +questioned Jim.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I did,” replied Madelon. She stood up with +sudden decision. “I want to see you a minute,” she said +to Jim. Then she turned to Mrs. Otis. “I don't need anything to +take,” said she. “I was only a little dizzy for a minute +when I came into this warm room. I feel better now. I only want to +ask your son a question, then I must go home—”</p> + +<p>Before Mrs. Otis could speak she asked the question with no +preface.</p> + +<p>“Didn't you see him give me the knife?” she cried out, +with fiercely imploring eyes upon Jim Otis's face.</p> + +<p>The young man turned deadly white. He looked at her and did not +answer.</p> + +<p>“Didn't you?” she repeated.</p> + +<p>“What knife?” asked Jim Otis, slowly.</p> + +<p>“You know what knife! The knife that my brother handed me +when I started home from the ball—the knife that I stabbed Lot +Gordon with. Tell me that you saw it, that you saw me take it, here +before your mother, and then you must go to New Salem and testify, +and set Burr Gordon free! He is in prison for murder, and I am +guilty, and they will not believe it. You must tell them, and they +will. You saw my brother give me that knife.”</p> + +<p>Still Jim Otis, with his white face, stood looking at her, and +answered not a word. His mother, continually opening her mouth to +speak, then shutting it, looked first at one, then at the other, with +round, dilated eyes, turning her head and quivering all over her soft +bulk, like some great agitated and softly feathered bird.</p> + +<p>“Why don't you speak?” demanded Madelon.</p> + +<p>“What is it you want me to say?” said Jim Otis, then, +hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>“Say? Say that you saw my brother Richard give me the knife +that I did the deed with.”</p> + +<p>Jim Otis stood silent, with his pale, handsome face bent doggedly +towards the floor.</p> + +<p>“Say so! You saw it!”</p> + +<p>Still Jim Otis did not speak, and Madelon pressed close to him, +and thrust her agonized face before his. “Have mercy upon me +and speak!” she groaned.</p> + +<p>“Jim, what does she mean?” asked his mother, in a +frightened whisper. “Is she out of her head?”</p> + +<p>“No; hush, mother,” replied Jim. Then he turned to the +girl. “No,” he said, with stern, defiant eyes upon her +face, “I did not see your brother give you the +knife.”</p> + +<p>“You did! I know you did!”</p> + +<p>“I <em>did not!</em>”</p> + +<p>“You did see him! You were looking at us when I went +out!”</p> + +<p>“I was tightening a string in the fiddle when you went +out,” said Jim Otis.</p> + +<p>“You must have seen.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I did not.”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him as if she would penetrate his soul, and he +met her eyes fully.</p> + +<p>“I did not see your brother give you the knife,” he +replied, with a steady, unflinching look at her; but a long shudder +went over him as he spoke. The first deliberate lie of his whole life +was Jim Otis telling, for he had seen Richard Hautville give his +sister the knife.</p> + +<p>Madelon believed his lie at last, and turned away. What with her +sore exhaustion of body and this last disappointment her heart almost +failed her. She went back to the settle for her cloak and her hood, +and tied them on, while the others stood watching her, seemingly in a +maze. She made for the door, but Jim Otis stopped her.</p> + +<p>“You cannot go back to Ware Centre to-night,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him with proud determination, although she could +scarce stand. “I must go,” said she, and would have +pressed past him, but he took hold of her arm.</p> + +<p>“Mother,” he said, “tell her she cannot go. +There has been no such night as this for forty years, and it is dark +now. To-morrow morning I will carry her home; but to-night, as she +is, it is out of the question. Tell her so, mother.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Otis gathered herself together then, and came forward and +laid hold of Madelon's arm, and strove to pull her back towards the +settle. “Come,” said she, as if Madelon were a +child—“come, that's a good girl. You stay with us till +morning, and then my son shall hitch up and carry you home. I +shouldn't dare to have him go way over to Ware Centre to-night, cold +as 'tis. He ain't very tough. You stay here with us to-night, and +don't worry anything about it. I don't know what you're talkin' +about, an' I guess you don't—you are all wore out, poor child; +but I guess there didn't nobody have any knife, and I guess he'll git +out of prison pretty soon. You just take off your things, and I'll +get some pillows out of the bedroom, and you lay down on the settle +by the fire while I get some supper. The kettle's on now. And then +I'll heat the warming-pan and get the spare-room bed as warm as +toast, and mix you up a tumbler of hot brandy cordial, and then you +drink it all down and get right into bed, and I'll tuck you up, and I +guess you'll feel better in the morning, and things will look +different.”</p> + +<p>“Let me go,” Madelon said to Jim Otis.</p> + +<p>“She mustn't go, mother,” he said, never looking at +Madelon at all, although he still held fast to her straining arm.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Mrs. Otis, “You ain't no daughter +of mine, and if you set out to go I suppose I ain't any right to +hinder you. But there's one thing maybe you ain't thought of—I +can't let my son take you 'way over to Ware Centre a night like this, +nohow. He's all I've got now, and I can't have anything happen to +him. He can't go with you, and there ain't any stable here, and there +ain't a neighbor round here that will hitch up and carry you there +to-night, and—I suppose you know, if you've got common-sense, +that if you set out to walk there, the way you are, you don't stand +much chance of gettin' there alive.”</p> + +<p>Madelon stared at her.</p> + +<p>“I don't really know myself what you and my son have been +talkin' about,” continued Mrs. Otis, “but near's I can +make out you think you've done something wrong, and somebody's in +prison you want to get out. I suppose you've got sense enough to know +that if you freeze to death going home to-night you can't do anything +more to get him out. Then there's another thing—it's night. You +can't do much to get him out anyway before morning. I don't believe +they ever let folks out at night, and my son shall carry you over +just as soon as it's fit in the morning, and you'll do just as much +good as if you went to-night.”</p> + +<p>Still Madelon stood staring at her. Then presently she began +unfastening her hood and cloak. “If you can keep me till +morning I shall be obliged,” she said, with a kind of stern +gratitude.</p> + +<p>“Stay just as well as not!” cried Mrs. Otis. +“Jim, just take her things and lay 'em in the bedroom. Then you +have her set right down close to the hearth, and get all warmed +through, while I get supper.”</p> + +<p>Handsome young Jim Otis stood by with his brows knit moodily while +Madelon Hautville removed her wraps, then took them over his arm, and +conducted her to the warm seat in the hearth-corner which his mother +designated.</p> + +<p>In his heart he judged this girl whom he was defending to be +guilty, yet was full of intensest admiration, and was sorely torn +between the two and his own remorse over his false witnessing. +“If I'm called into court and sworn on the Bible, I won't own +up that I saw her take that knife,” he muttered to himself, as +he laid the red cloak and hood on the high feather-bed in his +mother's room.</p> + +<p>This handsome, stalwart young man, who had hitherto been +considered full of a gay audacity where womenfolk were concerned, +able to make almost any pretty girl flutter at his smile, was +strangely abashed before this beautiful Madelon Hautville, stained, +in his eyes, with crime. He brought in wood and mended the hearth +fire; he moved about doing such household tasks as were allotted to +his masculine hands, and scarcely let his eyes rest once upon the +girl in the chimney-corner. He dreaded the sight of that beautiful +face which gave him such a shock of pity and admiration and horror. +Jim Otis's mind could not compass this new revelation of a woman, but +he would not betray her even for her own pleading if he went down +perjured to his grave. So valiant was he in her defence that he +withstood her against her own self.</p> + +<p>Madelon's mother had died when she was a little girl. She could +not fairly remember that ever in her whole life she had been so +tended and petted as she was that night by Jim Otis's mother. Kind +indeed her father and her brothers had always been to her. They had +watched over her with jealous fondness, and had taken all rougher +tasks upon themselves, but the devotion of woman, which extends to +all the minor details of life, she had never known.</p> + +<p>She had never had a supper-table set out for her own especial +pleasure with this and that dish to tempt her appetite, as Mrs. Otis +set out hers that night. A dish of a fine and sublimated porridge did +Mrs. Otis make for her—a porridge mixed with cream and +sprinkled with nutmeg and fat plums. “I thought some hot +porridge would do you good,” said Mrs. Otis, when she sat the +smoking bowl before Madelon. Then she whispered low, that her son, +who was putting another stick on the fire before coming to table, +might not hear, “It's the same kind of porridge I had after my +son was born—with cream and plums in it. I used to think there +never was anything so good.” This porridge might well have +possessed a flavor of the sweetest memories of motherhood to the +older woman, but to the girl, wild with longing to be gone and carry +out her purpose, manna from heaven would not have yielded its full +measure of sweetness.</p> + +<p>She would scarcely have eaten at all had not Jim Otis's mother +remarked, as she watched her reluctant sips of the good porridge, +“As I said just now, you ain't any daughter of mine, and I +ain't any right to dictate, but if you want to get that man, whoever +he is, out of prison, you'll have to eat enough to get some strength +to do it.”</p> + +<p>Simply placid as Mrs. Otis looked, she had often wisdom enough to +gain her ends by means of that shrewd finesse of government which +appeals to the reason of others as applied to the furthering of their +own desires.</p> + +<p>Madelon after that swallowed her porridge almost greedily, and +when supper was over went up-stairs to bed, following Mrs. Otis as +readily as any meek young daughter of her own might have done. The +spirit of resistance was laid for the time in this poor Madelon +Hautville, but it had yielded, after all, more to the will of her own +reason than to Jim Otis's mother or the weariness of her own +flesh.</p> + +<p>When Mrs. Otis came down-stairs she was flushed with pleasant +motherly victory. “She's drunk all that hot cordial,” she +said to her son, “every drop of it, and I've tucked her into +bed with the extra comfortables over her, an' she eat quite a good +supper, an' I told her to go right to sleep, and I guess she +will.”</p> + +<p>“If she don't she'll be down sick,” said Jim, sternly. +He sat by the fire, tuning his fiddle.</p> + +<p>“She can't hear your fiddle so it'll keep her awake, can +she?” asked Mrs. Otis, anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Of course she can't, up in the front chamber, with all the +doors shut. Wouldn't have touched it if she could.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don't s'pose she can. Jim—”</p> + +<p>Jim twanged a string. “What is it, mother?”</p> + +<p>“I don't want to have you think I'm interferin', Jim. I know +you're grown-up now, and I know there's things a young man might not +want to tell his mother till he gets ready, but I do kind of want to +know one thing, Jim.”</p> + +<p>Jim tightened the G string. He bent his face low over his violin. +“I don't know as I've ever kept much back from you, +mother,” he said, soberly.</p> + +<p>“No, I know you ain't, Jim; you've always told more to your +mother than most boys. But I didn't just know but this might be +something you hadn't got ready to speak about.”</p> + +<p>“What is it you want to know, mother?”</p> + +<p>“Jim, is that your <em>girl?</em>”</p> + +<p>Jim laughed a little, although his eyes were grave; he raise the +fiddle to his shoulder. “Lord, no, mother. I wouldn't get a +girl without asking you.”</p> + +<p>“I didn't know but you might have seen her over to Ware when +you've been there to parties, and not said anything.”</p> + +<p>“I never saw her but that once, mother.” Jim struck +up “Kinloch of Kinloch,” but he played softly, lest by +any chance Madelon, aloft in her chamber, might hear.</p> + +<p>“She's handsome as a picture,” said his mother. +“Who is it that's in prison, Jim?”</p> + +<p>“A young man by the name of Gordon.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“They think he stabbed his cousin.”</p> + +<p>“My sakes! Do you s'pose he did, Jim?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know, mother. I wasn't there.”</p> + +<p>“I s'pose the young man that did it is this girl's beau, and +that's why she's so crazy to get him out.”</p> + +<p>Jim played the merry measure softly, and made no reply.</p> + +<p>His mother stood before him quivering with curiosity, which she +restrained lest it defeat its own ends. She had learned early that +too impetuous feminine questioning is apt to strike a dead-wall in +the masculine mind.</p> + +<p>“I didn't quite understand what she meant about a +knife,” she ventured, with an eager glance at her son. He +played a little louder, as if he did not hear.</p> + +<p>“I s'pose she come here, walked all that way from Ware +Centre, this dreadful night, 'cause she thought you could help to get +her young man out of prison.”</p> + +<p>Jim nodded as he fiddled.</p> + +<p>“But I can't see how your seein' her brother give her a +knife could do any good. Of course that sweet, pretty girl didn't do +it herself. But you didn't see her brother give her the knife, +Jim?”</p> + +<p>“Didn't you hear me say I didn't?” replied Jim, with +sudden force. “Don't let's talk any more about it, mother. It's +a dreadful piece of work, anyway. I don't half know what it means +myself. That poor girl is 'most crazy because that fellow is in +prison. That's why she came on this wild-goose chase after me. You +can't tell anything by what she says.”</p> + +<p>“Wasn't he a nice kind of a fellow before this happened, +Jim?”</p> + +<p>“No, he was a scamp,” said Jim Otis, angrily. He +struck into the “Fisher's Hornpipe” with fury, regardless +of the girl up-stairs.</p> + +<p>“Land sakes, Jim, don't fiddle quite so loud as +that—I'm dreadful afraid she'll hear,” said his mother. +“I shouldn't thought a girl that looks as sweet as she does +would ever have taken up with a scamp.”</p> + +<p>“The sweetest girls are the worst fools,” answered +Jim, bitterly, but he obeyed his mother and played less loudly. The +shadows of the winter night might have footed it to the soft measures +of the hornpipe which Jim Otis played on his fiddle. His mother could +scarcely hear it in the pantry when she went in there to set away the +supper dishes. She shut the door every time, lest her son should feel +the icy air from the fireless closet. She had always a belief that +Jim was delicate, and took a certain pride in it, although she could +not have told why.</p> + +<p>Everything that was in the least likely to freeze to its injury +had to be removed from the cold pantry and set on the hearth that +bitter night. It was quite a while before her soft, heavy pattering, +which jarred the house when she stepped on certain parts of the +floor, ceased, and she took her knitting-work and sat down in her +rocking-chair opposite her son.</p> + +<p>Jim continued to fiddle, touching the strings as if his fingers +were muffled with down. The wind whistled more loudly than his +fiddle; it had increased, and the cold with it. Some of Mrs. Otis's +crocks froze on the hearth that night. No such cold had been known in +Vermont for years. The frost on the window-panes thickened—the +light of the full moon could not penetrate them; all over the house +were heard sounds like those on a straining ship at sea. The old +timbers cracked now and then with a report like a pistol. “It's +a dreadful night,” said Mrs. Otis, and as she spoke the +returning wind struck the house, and she gasped as if it had in truth +taken her breath away.</p> + +<p>A few minutes before nine o'clock Mrs. Otis put away her +knitting-work and got the great Bible off the desk. “Stop +fiddling now, Jim,” she said, solemnly. Mrs. Otis spoke with +more direct authority in religious matters than in others. She felt +herself well backed by the spiritual law. Jim finished the tune he +was playing and lowered his fiddle from his shoulder. His mother +found the place in the Bible, and the holy words were on her tongue +when there was a sharp clash of sleigh-bells close under the +window.</p> + +<p>“Somebody's drove into the yard!” cried Mrs. Otis. +“Who do you s'pose 'tis this time of night?”</p> + +<p>“Hullo!” shouted a man's voice, hoarsely, and Jim +shouted “Hullo!” in response, and started towards the +door.</p> + +<p>“Ask who's there before you open the door,” said the +mother, anxiously. She stood listening a moment after Jim had gone; +then she caught her shawl from a peg, put it over her head, and +followed him—she was so afraid some harm would come to her +son.</p> + +<p>The outer door was open, and before it was drawn up a sleigh and a +great, high-shouldered, snorting and pawing horse. In the sleigh was +a man muffled in furs like an Eskimo, leaning out and questioning +Jim.</p> + +<p>“When did she come?” asked the man.</p> + +<p>“About five o'clock,” answered Jim.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Otis understood that they were talking about the girl in +her spare-chamber, and she interposed, standing in the doorway. +“She was just about tuckered out, what with the cold and that +awful tramp,” said she. “She most ought to have rode +over.” Mrs. Otis's voice was soft and conciliatory.</p> + +<p>“We didn't know she was coming,” replied the man in +the sleigh, courteously, “or we should not have let her walk so +far on such a day.”</p> + +<p>“Be you her brother?” questioned Mrs. Otis.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I'm her brother Eugene.”</p> + +<p>“And you drove over to see where she was?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; we've been very anxious.”</p> + +<p>“Well, you can be easy about her for to-night,” said +Mrs. Otis. “She's tucked up nice and warm in my spare-chamber +bed, and I give her a tumbler of my brandy cordial, and I guess she's +sound asleep.”</p> + +<p>“He wants to take her home to-night, mother,” said +Jim, and there was a curious appeal in his tone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Otis, standing there on the door-step in the freezing +moonlight, turned quickly upon the man in the sleigh, and all the +soft conciliation was gone from her voice. “You ain't plannin' +to take that girl way home to Ware Centre to-night?” said +she.</p> + +<p>“Father sent me for her,” replied Eugene +Hautville.</p> + +<p>“Well, she ain't goin' a step!”</p> + +<p>“Her father will expect me to bring her,” said Eugene, +with his unfailing courtesy. “He has been very anxious. I had +hard work to find where she was. My father won't be satisfied if I +come home without her.”</p> + +<p>“That girl ain't going out of this house +to-night!”</p> + +<p>“I've got a bearskin here to wrap her up in. She is used to +being out in all weathers,” persisted Eugene, gently.</p> + +<p>“She can't go. Pull her out of a warm bed such a night as +this! If you try to take that poor child out to-night I'll stand in +my spare-chamber door, and you'll have to walk over me to do +it—and my son won't see his mother hurt, I guess!”</p> + +<p>Jim Otis stepped closer to the sleigh and spoke to Eugene +Hautville in a low voice.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Eugene, slowly, “maybe you're +right, Otis. I don't know what father will say, but if she was as +used up as you tell for, I don't know as 'tis safe. It is an awful +night.”</p> + +<p>“I guess it ain't safe, and she ain't going,” +maintained Mrs. Otis from the door-step.</p> + +<p>Then Eugene Hautville bent well out of his sleigh and asked a +question in the other man's ear.</p> + +<p>“Yes, she did,” replied Jim Otis.</p> + +<p>“The poor girl is crazy over it,” said Eugene. He and +Jim talked for a few moments, but Mrs. Otis, straining her ears on +the door-step, could not hear.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Jim said, quite distinctly, “She wanted to know if +I saw him give her the knife.”</p> + +<p>There was a pause; then Eugene Hautville asked, in a voice with +which he might have addressed a judge of his life and death, +“Did you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Jim Otis.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XII</h4> + +<p>The next morning there took place in a few hours a great change in +the temperature. It moderated rapidly. The frost on the windows and +the ice-ridges in the roads did not soften yet, since the sun was +overcast by heavy clouds, but the terrible rigor and tension of the +cold was relaxed, and men could breathe without constraint. At eight +o'clock, when Jim Otis and Madelon started for Ware Centre, there was +a white film of fallen snow over the distant hills and scattering +flakes drove in advance of the storm.</p> + +<p>A mile out of Kingston it snowed hard. “Hadn't you better +have that extra shawl mother put in over your shoulders?” Jim +Otis suggested.</p> + +<p>But Madelon shook her head. “The snow won't hurt me,” +she said. She sat up straight in the sleigh, and there was a look in +her eyes, fixed ahead on the white drive of the storm, as if her +spirit were out-speeding her body. She had her strength again that +morning. She had slept and eaten. She had submitted to the exigencies +of life that she might gain power to resist them again.</p> + +<p>Jim Otis drove a stout little mare with a good wind for speed, but +she had not the stride of David Hautville's great roan. Moreover, +after the first stretch, she slacked on the hills and fell into walks +in the lonely reaches, almost as if she had learned it in a lesson. +Many a pretty girl, flushing sweetly under Jim Otis's gay smile, and +perhaps under his caressing arm, had ridden behind that little canny +mare, who learned well the meaning of the careless rein along the +woodland roads.</p> + +<p>However, to-day there was no careless rein. At the first slack +Madelon herself had reached the whip and touched the gently ambling +neck. “She has more speed in her than this,” said she, +shortly.</p> + +<p>“She hasn't been driven for two days, either,” +asserted Jim Otis. “Wake up, Molly!” He took the whip +himself and flourished it with a quick little snap over her back. In +truth, Jim Otis was as anxious to be at this journey's end as +Madelon, for he feared every minute lest she should ask him again if +he had seen her take the knife, and that he would again have to +oppose falsehood to her frantic pleading. But Madelon had believed +him. She did not beg him again for his evidence. She sat still at his +side with a strained look in her black eyes, and they rode in +silence, with the storm heaping its white flakes on their shoulders, +until they reached Ware Centre.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon turned quickly to Jim Otis. “Don't drive to my +home,” said she; “I would rather not go home yet. Drive +to Burr Gordon's house, please. I want to see his mother. Don't +turn—keep straight on.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know where he lives,” said Jim, soberly. He +drove very slowly. They were drawing near the turn in the road. +“See here,” he said, suddenly, “don't you think +you'd better go home now?” He spoke with nothing of the +half-gay, half-caressing authority with which he was wont to turn a +pretty girl to his mind, but timidly rather, and kept his eyes fixed +on the mare's nodding head, hooded with snow.</p> + +<p>“No, I must see Burr's mother,” replied Madelon.</p> + +<p>“But your folks will be expecting you, won't they?” +persisted Jim Otis. He felt that he had a duty of loyalty towards +this desperate girl's father and brothers as well as to herself. He +had promised Eugene Hautville to bring her home this morning, and who +could tell where she might wander and when she might return if he +left her now?</p> + +<p>He still did not look at Madelon as he spoke, but he felt her turn +and fasten her eyes upon his face, and somehow they compelled his. He +raised them and saw her beautiful face full of a scorn of passion +which he might die and never know in himself.</p> + +<p>“What do you think that is to me,” said she, +“when I've got to save his life? If you do not wish to carry me +farther, go back. I will walk.”</p> + +<p>“I will take you wherever you wish,” returned Jim +Otis, and touched up the mare, and neither spoke again until they +reached Burr Gordon's house, high on its three terraces, with Lot +Gordon's opposite. Then Jim halted his mare in the road before it, +and would have alighted to assist Madelon, but she sprang out before +him. “I am much obliged to you and your mother for what you +have done for me,” said she, and turned with a swing of her red +cloak, and was skimming up the terraces like a red-winged bird.</p> + +<p>As for Jim Otis, he slewed his sleigh about recklessly, and shook +the whip over the little mare, and drove up the road. When he reached +the turn which he knew led to the Hautville house he drew rein, and +sat pondering in his sleigh for a few minutes. He was in doubt +whether he should inform Eugene Hautville of his sister's whereabouts +or not. Finally he spoke to the mare, and continued on his way to +Kingston.</p> + +<p>The terraces which Madelon mounted were all covered with the +gathering snow. When she reached the last the door was opened, and +Burr Gordon's mother, Elvira, stood there. “I am sorry there's +so much snow for you to wade through,” said she, in a sweet, +quiet voice.</p> + +<p>“I don't mind it, thank you,” replied Madelon, +harshly. She felt incensed with this mother of Burr's, who came to +the door and greeted her as if she were an ordinary caller, and her +son were not in prison.</p> + +<p>“You had better shake it off your skirts or you'll take +cold,” said Mrs. Gordon.</p> + +<p>“I am not afraid,” returned Madelon. She gave her +skirts a careless flirt and entered the door with the snow still +clinging to her.</p> + +<p>“If you will wait a moment,” said Mrs. Gordon, +“I will get a broom and brush the snow from you before it +melts. Then you won't take cold.”</p> + +<p>“I don't care to have you, thank you,” said Madelon. +Mrs. Gordon said no more, but led the way to the sitting-room. She +was a tall, slender woman with the face of a saint, long and pale, +and full of gentle melancholy, with large, meek-lidded blue eyes and +patiently compressed lips. She had a habit of folding her long hands +always before her, whether she walked or sat, and she moved with +sinuous wavings of her widow-bombazine.</p> + +<p>The room into which she ushered Madelon was accounted the grandest +sitting-room in the village. When Burr's father had built his fine +new house he had made the furnishings correspond. He had eschewed the +spindle-legged tables and fiddle-backed chairs of the former +generations, and taken to solid masses of red mahogany, which were +impressive to the village folk. The carpet was a tapestry of great +crimson roses with the like of which no other floor in town was +covered, and, moreover, there was a glossy black stove instead of a +hearth fire.</p> + +<p>“Please be seated,” said Mrs. Gordon. She indicated +the best chair in the room. When her guest had taken it, she sat down +herself in the middle of her great haircloth sofa, and folded her +long hands in her lap. Mrs. Gordon had the extremest manners of the +old New England gentlewoman—so punctiliously polite that they +called attention to themselves. She had married late in life, having +been previously a preceptress in a young ladies' school. She was +still the example of her own precepts—all outward decorum if +not inward composure.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville, opposite her, in her snow-powdered cloak, with +her face like a flash of white fire in her snow-powdered silk hood, +seemed in comparison a female of another and an older race. She might +well, from the look of her, have come a nearer and straighter road +from the inmost heart of things, from the unpruned tangle of woods +and undammed course of streams, from all primitive and untempered +love and passion and religion, than this gentlewoman formed upon the +models of creeds and scholars.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at the other woman a second with fierce +questioning. Then she sprang up out of the chair where she had been +placed, and stood before her on her sofa, and cried out, abruptly, +“I have come to tell you about your son. He is not guilty. I, +myself, stabbed Lot Gordon!”</p> + +<p>“Please be seated,” said Elvira Gordon, and her folded +hands in her lap never stirred.</p> + +<p>“Seated!” cried Madelon, “seated! How can +<em>you</em> be seated, how can you rest a moment—you, his +mother? Why do you not set out to New Salem now—now? Why do you +not walk there, every step, in the snow? Why do you not crawl there +on your hands and knees, if your feet fail you, and plead with him to +confess that I speak the truth, and tell them to set him +free?”</p> + +<p>“I beg of you not to so agitate yourself,” said Elvira +Gordon. “You will be ill. Pray be seated.”</p> + +<p>Madelon bent towards her with a sudden motion, as if she would +seize her by the shoulders.</p> + +<p>“Are you his mother,” she cried—“his +mother—and sit here, like this, and speak like this? Why do you +not move? Why do you not start this instant for New Salem—this +instant?”</p> + +<p>“I beg you to calm yourself,” replied Elvira Gordon. +“I have been to New Salem to visit my son. I have prayed with +him in his prison.”</p> + +<p>“Prayed with him! Don't you know that he is innocent, and in +prison for murder—your own son? You stop to pray with him; why +don't you act to save him?”</p> + +<p>“You will make yourself ill, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“Don't you believe that your son is innocent?” +demanded Madelon. “Don't you believe it?”</p> + +<p>Her eyes blazed; she clinched her hands. She felt as if she could +spring at this other woman with her gentle murmurings and soft +foldings, and shake her into her own meaning of life. If her impulse +had had the power of deed, Elvira Gordon's little cap of fine +needle-work would have been a fiercely crumpled rag upon her decorous +head, her sober bands of gray hair would have streamed like the locks +of a fury, the quiet clasp of her long fingers would have been +stirred with some response of indignant defence if nothing else. +Madelon, with her, realized that worst balk in the world—the +balk of a passive nature in the path of an active one—and all +her fiery zeal seemed to flow back into herself and fairly madden +her.</p> + +<p>“I hope,” said Elvira Gordon, “that my son will +be proved innocent and set free.”</p> + +<p>“<em>Proved</em> innocent! Don't you know your own son is +innocent?”</p> + +<p>“I pray without ceasing that he may be acquitted of the +crime for which he is imprisoned,” replied Elvira Gordon, over +her folded hands.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at her. “You are a good woman,” said +she, with fierce scorn. “You are a member of Parson Fair's +church, and you keep to the commandments and all the creed. You are a +good woman, and you believe in the eternal wrath of God and the guilt +of your own son. You believe in that, in spite of what I tell you. +But I tell you again that I, and not your son, am guilty, and I will +save him yet!”</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville gathered her red cloak about her, and Mrs. +Gordon arose as she would have done when any caller was about to take +leave. It would scarcely have seemed out of keeping with her manner +had she politely invited Madelon to call again. However, her quiet +voice was somewhat unsteady and hoarse when she spoke to Madelon on +the threshold of the outer door, although the words were still gently +formal. “I am grateful to you for the interest you take in my +son,” she said; “I hope you will not excite yourself so +much that you will be ill.”</p> + +<p>“I will die if that can save him,” answered Madelon +Hautville, and went down the snowy steps over the terraces.</p> + +<p>Elvira Gordon, when she had closed the door, drew the bolt softly. +Truth was, she thought the girl had gone mad through grief and love +for her son. Believing, as she did, that the love was all unsought +and unreturned, and being also shocked in all her delicate decorum by +such unmaidenly violence and self-betrayal, she regarded Madelon with +a strange mixture of scorn and sympathy and fear.</p> + +<p>Moreover, not one word did she believe of Madelon's assertion that +she herself was guilty. “She is accusing herself to save my +son,” thought Elvira Gordon, and her heart seemed to leap after +the girl with half-shamed gratitude, in spite of her astonishment and +terror, as she watched her go out of the yard and across the road to +Lot Gordon's house. Mrs. Gordon stood at one of the narrow lights +beside her front door and watched until Madelon entered the opposite +house; then she went hastily through her fine sitting-room to her own +bedroom, and there went down on her knees, and all her icy constraint +melted into a very passion of weeping and prayer. Those placidly +folded hands of hers clutched at the poor mother-bosom in the fury of +her grief; those placid-lidded eyes welled over with scalding tears; +that calmly set mouth was convulsed like a wailing child's, and all +the rigorous lines of her whole body were relaxed into overborne +curves of agony. “Oh, my son, my son, my son!” lamented +Elvira Gordon. “Have mercy, have mercy, O Father in heaven! Let +him be proved innocent! Let Lot Gordon live! Oh, my son!”</p> + +<p>Elvira Gordon had the stern pride of justice of a Brutus. She +would not without proof discover even to the passionate pleading of +her own heart that she believed her son innocent, but believe it she +did. Every breath she drew was a prayer that Lot Gordon might yet +speak and clear Burr. This morning she had some slight hope that that +might come to pass, for the sick man had passed a comfortable night +except for his old enemy, the cough.</p> + +<p>“It's my belief,” Margaret Bean had told Elvira, when +she had sped across the road in the early morning to inquire, +“that it's his old trouble that's going to kill him when he +does die instead of anything else.”</p> + +<p>“Has he spoken yet?” asked Elvira, eagerly.</p> + +<p>“No, he ain't; but there's none so still as them that won't +speak.” Margaret Bean nodded shrewdly at Elvira. Her voice was +weak and hoarse as if from a cold or much calling, but there was +sharp emphasis in it. She gave a curious impression of spirit subdued +and tearfully rasped, like her face, yet never lacking.</p> + +<p>“You—think he—could?” whispered Elvira +Gordon.</p> + +<p>“'Tain't for me to say,” replied Margaret Bean. +“He lays there—looks most as if he was dead.” She +wiped her eyes hard, with a handkerchief so stiff that it looked on +that cold morning frozen as with old tears. Margaret Bean was famous +for her fine starching in the village; it was her chief domestic +talent, and she was faithful in its application in all possible +directions.</p> + +<p>“I wish he would speak if he could,” said Mrs. +Gordon.</p> + +<p>“I do, if it's for the best,” returned Margaret Bean. +She hesitated; there were red rings around her tearful eyes, like a +bird's. “I can't believe your son did it, nohow, Mis' +Gordon,” said she.</p> + +<p>“I hope if my son is innocent he will be proved so,” +returned Elvira Gordon. She was too proudly just herself not to use +the word <em>if</em>, and yet she could have slain the other woman +for the sly doubt and pity in her tone.</p> + +<p>“It's harder for you than 'tis for him, layin' there,” +said Margaret Bean, nodding towards the house. There was an odd +gratulation of pity in her tone. She rubbed her eyes again.</p> + +<p>“We all have our own burdens,” replied Elvira, with a +dignified motion, as if she straightened herself under hers. “I +hope he will be able to speak—soon.”</p> + +<p>“I hope so, if it's for the best,” said Margaret +Bean.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIII</h4> + +<p>Elvira Gordon had gone home hoping that Lot might yet speak. She +had heard his rattling cough as she picked her way out of the icy +yard, and Madelon also heard it when she entered it. She knocked at +the side door, and Margaret Bean opened it. She had a gruel cup in +her hand.</p> + +<p>“I want to see him,” said Madelon.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean looked at her. Her starched calico apron flared out +widely over her lank knees across the doorway.</p> + +<p>“I'm afraid he ain't able to see nobody this morning,” +said she, and the asperity in her tone was less veiled than usual. +Her voice was not so hoarse. She was mindful of this girl's former +conduct at her master's bedside, and herself half believed her mad or +guilty. A suspicious imagination had Margaret Bean, and Madelon would +have found in her a much readier belief than in others.</p> + +<p>“I've got to see him, whether he's able or not,” said +Madelon.</p> + +<p>“The doctor said—”</p> + +<p>“I'm going to see him!”</p> + +<p>Madelon pushed roughly in past the smooth apron and ran through +the entry to Lot's room, with the housekeeper staring after her in a +helpless ruffle of indignation.</p> + +<p>“She's gone in there,” she told her husband, who +appeared in the kitchen door, dish-towel in hand. Margaret Bean's +husband always washed the dishes and performed all the irresponsible +domestic duties of the establishment. He was commonly adjudged not as +smart as his wife, and little store was set by his counsels. Indeed, +at times the only dignity of his man's estate which seemed left to +this obediently pottering old body was the masculine pronoun which +necessarily expressed him still. However, even in that the +undisturbed use was not allowed. “Margaret Bean's +husband” was usually substituted for “He,” and +nothing left of him but the superior feminine element feebly +qualified by masculinity.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean's husband's name was Zenas, but scarcely anybody +knew it, and he had almost forgotten it himself through never being +addressed by it. Margaret herself spoke of her husband as +“Him,” but she never called him anything, except +sometimes “You.” However, he always knew when she meant +him, and there was no need of specification.</p> + +<p>Now he half thought she was appealing to his masculine authority +from her bewildered air. He stiffened his meek old back. “Want +me to go in there and order her out?”</p> + +<p>“<em>You!</em> Go back in there and finish them +dishes.”</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean's husband went back into the kitchen, and Margaret +followed Madelon with a sly, determined air, to Lot's room.</p> + +<p>The great square northwest room was warm, but the frost had not +yet melted from the window-panes. The room looked full of hard white +lines of frost, and starched curtains, and high wainscoting; but the +hardest white lines of all were in Lot Gordon's face, sunken sharply +in his pillows, showing between the stiff dimity slants of his +bed-hangings as in a tent door. He looked already like a dead man, +except for his eyes. It seemed as if the life in them could never die +when they saw Madelon. She bent over him, darkening the light.</p> + +<p>“Speak now!” said she.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon looked up at her.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, speak! I will not bear this any longer. I am at +the end.”</p> + +<p>Still Lot Gordon looked up at her silently.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon made a quick motion in the folds of her skirt, and +there was the long gleam of a hunting-knife above the man in the bed. +Margaret Bean, standing by the door, shrieked faintly, but she did +not stir.</p> + +<p>“I have tried everything,” said Madelon. “This +is the last. Speak, or I will make your speaking of no avail. I will +strike again, and this time they shall find me beside you and not +Burr. My new guilt shall prove my old, and they will hang me and not +him. Speak, or, before God, I will strike!”</p> + +<p>Then Lot Gordon spoke. “I love you, Madelon,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“Say what I bid you, Lot Gordon; not that.”</p> + +<p>“All your bidding is in that.”</p> + +<p>“Will you?”</p> + +<p>“I will clear—Burr.”</p> + +<p>Madelon slipped her knife away, and stood back. Margaret Bean +slunk farther around past the bedpost. Neither of them could see +her.</p> + +<p>“On one condition,” said Lot Gordon.</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“That you marry me.”</p> + +<p>Madelon gasped. “You?”</p> + +<p>Lot laughed faintly, stretching his ghastly mouth. “You +think it is an offer of wedlock from a churchyard knight,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“What are you talking about, Lot Gordon?”</p> + +<p>“Marry me!”</p> + +<p>“Marry you? I am going to prison to-day for stabbing you. If +you die, I die for your murder. Marriage between us? You are mad, Lot +Gordon.”</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon opened his mouth to speak, but he coughed instead. He +half raised himself feebly, and his cough shook the bed. Madelon +waited until he lay back, gasping.</p> + +<p>“You are mad to talk so,” she said again, but her +voice was softer.</p> + +<p>“No madder—than—my ancestors made me,” Lot +stammered, feebly. Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead.</p> + +<p>Madelon stood looking at him. He lay still, breathing hard, for a +little; then he spoke again. “Say you will marry me, and I will +clear him,” he said, “or else—strike as you will. +But all will believe that Burr struck the first blow and you the +second for love of him, and though he be not hung, the mark of the +noose will be round his neck in folks' fancies so long as he draws +the breath of life.”</p> + +<p>“I will marry you,” said Madelon.</p> + +<p>“Don't cheat yourself,” Lot went on, in his disjointed +sentences, broken with the rise of the cough in his throat. +“This wound may not be—mortal—after all, and a man +lives—long, sometimes, when he's sore put to it for breath. The +spark of life dies hard, and you may fan it into a blaze again. All +the doctor's nostrums may not stir my poor dying flesh—but give +the spirit—what it craves—and 'tis sometimes—strong +enough—to gallop the flesh where it will. Lord, I've seen a +tree blossom in the fall, when 'twas warm enough. It may be a long +life we'll—live together, Madelon. +Don't—cheat—yourself into—thinking you'll be my +widow, instead of—my wife. My wife you may be, and—the +mother of my children.”</p> + +<p>Madelon moved towards him with a curious, pushing motion, as if +she thrust out of her way her own will. She bent over him her white +face, holding her body aloof. “I will marry you, come what +will. Now, set him free.”</p> + +<p>Great tears stood in Lot's eyes. “Oh,” he whispered, +“you think only of him. I love you better than he does, +Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“Set him free,” said she, in a hard voice.</p> + +<p>Lot heaved a great sigh, and rolled his eyes feebly about towards +the door.</p> + +<p>“Find—Margaret Bean,” he began; and with that +Margaret Bean, who had kept the door ajar, slid out softly, +“and tell her—to send her husband to—Parson Fair, +and—Jonas Hapgood, and she—must go the other way +for—the doctor. Tell them to come at once.”</p> + +<p>With that Lot fell to coughing again, but Madelon went out +quickly, and found Margaret Bean in the kitchen mixing gruel.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Gordon wishes your husband to go at once for Parson +Fair and Jonas Hapgood, and you for the doctor,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Is he took worse?” asked Margaret Bean, innocently, +with a quick sniff of apprehension.</p> + +<p>“No, he is no worse, but he wishes to see them. He said to +go at once.”</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean cast an injured eye at the window, all blurred with +the clinging shreds of the storm. “I don't see how I can get +out in this awful storm nohow,” she said. “I've got +rheumatism now. Why can't <em>he</em> go to see 'em all, I'd like to +know?”</p> + +<p>“The doctor lives a quarter of a mile the other way. It will +save time.”</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean looked at the gruel. “I've got to make this +gruel for him.”</p> + +<p>“I will make it. Get your shawl, quick.”</p> + +<p>“It ain't b'iled.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you I will make it.”</p> + +<p>“Why can't <em>he</em> go to both places?”</p> + +<p>“I will go myself!” Madelon cried, suddenly. She had +been bewildered, or that would have occurred to her before. She had +never been one to send where she could go, but for the time Lot +Gordon's will had overcome hers. “Tell your husband to go to +the parson's and the sheriff's, quick, and I will go for the +doctor,” said she, and was flashing out of the yard in her red +cloak before Margaret Bean had time to turn herself about from the +prospect of her own going. Then she ordered her husband imperiously +into his boots and great-coat and tippet, and sent him forth.</p> + +<p>She finished the gruel, and took it in to the sick man, and fed +him with hard thrusts of the spoon. Lot looked about feebly for +Madelon, and Margaret Bean replied to the look, in her husky voice, +“She's gone, instead of me. I've got rheumatism too bad to +venture out in such a storm and get my petticoats bedraggled.” +She spoke with a little whine of defiant crying, but Lot took no +notice. He was exhausted. After he had eaten the gruel, he pointed to +the chimney-cupboard.</p> + +<p>“What is it ye want?” said she.</p> + +<p>Lot pointed.</p> + +<p>“How do I know what ye want when ye jest p'int like +that?”</p> + +<p>But there came then a look into Lot Gordon's eyes as expressive as +a word, and Margaret Bean crossed over to the chimney-cupboard, and +got out the brandy-flask and a wine-glass and some loaf-sugar. She +mixed a little dose of the brandy and sugar, and would have fed it to +the sick man as she had the gruel, but he motioned her aside, raised +himself with an effort, and drank it down eagerly. Then he lay still, +and soon a faint flush came into his face. Margaret Bean went back +into the kitchen and mixed some bread, with her eye upon the +window.</p> + +<p>Presently there was a wild gallop and great clash of bells past +the window, and a shout at the door. Margaret Bean put on her little +blue shawl and opened it when the shout had been twice repeated. Old +David Hautville sat there in his sleigh, keeping a tight rein on his +tugging roan. “My daughter here?” he shouted. +“Whoa, there!”</p> + +<p>“There's sick folks here,” said Margaret Bean, +shivering in the doorway. “You hadn't ought to holler +so.” Her tearful eyes were more frankly hostile than usual. +She had always looked down from her own slight eminence of life upon +these Hautvilles, and now was full of scorn that her master was to +marry one of them.</p> + +<p>“I want to know if my daughter is here,” said David +Hautville, and he did not lower his voice. It sounded like a hoarse +bellow of wrath, coming out of the white whirl of snow. His fur coat +was all crusted with snow, his great mustache heavy with it; the roan +plunged in a rising cloud of it.</p> + +<p>“No, she ain't here,” replied Margaret Bean, and her +weak voice seemed by its very antithesis to express the utmost scorn +and disgust at the brutality of the other.</p> + +<p>“Has she been here?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she's been here.” Margaret made as though to +shut the door, but David Hautville stopped her.</p> + +<p>“Did she start for home?”</p> + +<p>“You'd better ask somebody that knows more about +it.”</p> + +<p>“Where did she go?”</p> + +<p>“You'd better ask somebody that knows about it!” +repeated Margaret Bean, in her malicious meekness. Then she shut the +door.</p> + +<p>David Hautville, with a great “whoa!” leaped out of +the sleigh. He led up the roan with a fierce pull to the fence, and +tied her there. Then he strode into the house, and through the entry +to Lot's room, with no ceremony.</p> + +<p>“Where is my daughter?” he demanded, standing at Lot's +bedside in his great fur coat, all bristling with points of snow.</p> + +<p>“She'll be back presently,” answered Lot. His voice +was a little stronger; there were two red spots on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Where's she gone?”</p> + +<p>“For the doctor.”</p> + +<p>All at once David Hautville gave a great start. “Why, you're +talking!” he cried out. “You couldn't speak.”</p> + +<p>Lot nodded vaguely.</p> + +<p>“You're better, then?” cried the other, with a sharp +look at him.</p> + +<p>Lot nodded again.</p> + +<p>“When did she come here?”</p> + +<p>“Just now.”</p> + +<p>“Same damned nonsense, I suppose. She's gone mad. If the law +don't finish that fellow, I will!”</p> + +<p>Lot motioned towards a chair. “Sit down,” he +whispered.</p> + +<p>“She coming back with the doctor?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Lot coughed.</p> + +<p>David Hautville settled into a chair with a surly grunt. He +watched Lot cough, holding to his straining chest, and thought that +he must be worse, else he would not have sent for the doctor. He +resolved to wait and take his daughter home with him, by force if +necessary, but with no more disturbance of this man, who might be +sick unto death. Seeing Lot cast his eyes about as if looking for +something, and make a motion towards the table at his side, he rose +up quickly and got him a spoonful of the cough mixture in a bottle +thereon, and administered it to him gently.</p> + +<p>“Don't you touch my wet coat,” said David Hautville, +“or yo'll get a chill,” and he held himself carefully +away from the sick man.</p> + +<p>When Lot lay back, panting, he returned to his chair and did not +speak again. The two remained in silence until there came the jingle +of bells, the tramp of horses' feet, and the voice of men out in the +yard.</p> + +<p>Lot lay still, with his eyes closed. David Hautville raised his +head and looked at the window, thick with frost. Presently the door +was opened softly, and the doctor came in, with Parson Fair and Jonas +Hapgood. Madelon, in her snow-powdered red cloak, came last. David +started up fiercely when he saw her; then he stood back and waited. +The doctor bent over Lot and began counting his pulse. He eyed him +sharply.</p> + +<p>“The pendulum still swings,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>The doctor started. “You can speak, then!” he cried +out, brusquely.</p> + +<p>Lot smiled.</p> + +<p>The doctor was old, and his long struggle with birth and death had +begun to tell upon him. He had already visited Lot that morning, +after a hard night with a patient, back in the hills. His face was +haggard under its sharp gray bristle of beard; his eyes fierce, like +an old dog's, with fatigue and hunger. He had just reached home and +sat down to his breakfast when this new call came. He had thought Lot +was dying from Madelon's imperative summons, and she had not +undeceived him. She was growing cunning in her desperate efforts to +save Burr Gordon.</p> + +<p>“What in thunder did ye send for me again for?” he +snapped. This old country doctor was never chary of plain speaking, +and his brusqueness had increased his popularity. Many of his +patients were simple countrywomen, who had greater belief in that +which they feared. They repeated his half-savage speeches to each +other, and added, “He's a good doctor, if he does speak +out.”</p> + +<p>Lot only smiled that covert smile of his, which seemed to imply +some wisdom of humor beyond the ken of others. “I ought to be +dying,” he said, with grim apology. “I ought not—to +have disturbed you all for a less reason than to witness my final +exit, but I want you to witness something else.” Lot Gordon +spoke quite strongly and connectedly.</p> + +<p>“What?” asked the doctor, irritably.</p> + +<p>“I want to make a statement,” said Lot Gordon.</p> + +<p>There was a pause. Jonas Hapgood, with his look of heavy +facetiousness, slightly tempered now with curiosity, stood lounging +into his great snowy boots at the foot of the bed. Parson Fair, the +consolation for the dying which he had thought to administer still in +his mind, which could not swerve easily, his slender height in his +black surtout inclined towards the sick man with gentle courtesy, +waited. Margaret Bean peered around the bed-curtain. Madelon stood +near the doctor, her face white as if she were dead, and a look of +awful listening upon it. In the background David Hautville, wrathful +and wondering, towered over them all.</p> + +<p>“I wish to declare in the presence of these +witnesses,” said Lot Gordon, “the doctor here testifying +that I am in my right mind”—the doctor gave a surly grunt +of assent—“that it is my firm belief that all mortal ills +come to man through his own agency, and this last ill of mine is no +exception. I declare solemnly before you all that my cousin Burr +Gordon is not guilty of administering this wound which I bear in my +side.”</p> + +<p>The sheriff started forward. “Who did do it, then?” he +cried out.</p> + +<p>“I myself,” replied Lot Gordon.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIV</h4> + +<p>There was a gasp of astonishment from the company. Jonas Hapgood +began to speak, but Madelon's soprano drowned out his thick bass.</p> + +<p>“How dare you,” she cried out, “swear to that +lie? Liar! You are a liar, Lot Gordon!”</p> + +<p>Then, before Lot could reply, David Hautville came forward with a +mighty plunge, and grasped his daughter by the arm, and forced her to +the door.</p> + +<p>“Get ye out of this,” growled David Hautville; but +Madelon turned her face back in the doorway for one last word. +“Don't you know,” she shrieked back to Lot Gordon, in her +pitiless despair—“don't you know that I would rather have +seen the inside of my prison-cell to-night and the gallows to-morrow +than this, Lot Gordon?”</p> + +<p>“Quit your talk!” shouted David Hautville; and she +followed his fierce leading out of the house into the yard.</p> + +<p>“Get ye into this sleigh,” ordered her father; and she +obeyed. Suddenly the fire of passion and revolt seemed to die out in +her; it was like a lull in a spiritual storm. She rode home with her +father, and neither spoke. David Hautville now considered the matter +as past any words of reasoning. He was convinced that his daughter's +fair wits were shaken, and that nothing but summary dealing, as with +a child, could avail anything. When they reached home he bade her, +with a kind of stern forbearance, to get into the house at once and +see to her work there, and she obeyed again.</p> + +<p>All that day, and many days after that, poor Madelon Hautville, +who had been striving like any warrior against the powers and +principalities of human wills and passions, and had grounded her arms +after a victory which had left her wounded almost to death, carried +her bleeding heart and walked her woman's treadmill. She scoured +faithfully the pewter dishes and the iron pots. She swept the hearth +clean and baked and brewed and spun and sewed. Her lot would have +been easier had her woe befallen her generations before, and she +could, instead, have backed her heavy load of tenting through the +snow on wild hunting-parties, and broken the ice on the river for +fish, and perchance taken a hand at the defence when the males of her +tribe were hard pressed. Civilization bowed cruelly this girl, who +felt in greater measure than the gently staid female descendants of +the Puritan stock around her the fire of savage or primitive +passions; but she now submitted to it with the taciturnity of one of +her ancestresses to the torture. Week after week she went about the +house, and neither spoke nor smiled. Burr Gordon was set free, fully +acquitted of the charge against him; Madelon's denial of Lot's false +confession had gone for nothing. Half the village considered her +hysterical and irresponsible, and Lot Gordon, it was agreed, was just +the man to lay violent hands upon his own life, steal and use his +cousin's knife, and keep mute to fasten the guilt upon him, as he had +confessed.</p> + +<p>A week after Burr's release Louis and Richard Hautville came home. +They had been trapping on Green Mountain, they said, camping in the +little lodge they had built there. When they came in laden with stark +white rabbits and limp-necked birds, and one of them with a haunch of +venison on his back, Madelon faced them with sudden fierceness, as if +to speak. Then she turned away to her work, without a word of +greeting. The boy Richard stared at her with a quiver, as of coming +tears on his handsome face. He whispered to Eugene, when she went +into the pantry.</p> + +<p>“Best let her alone,” said Eugene. “She's been +so ever since.”</p> + +<p>Not one of them knew of her promise to marry Lot Gordon, and Lot +had bound Margaret Bean over to secrecy. All the village was as yet +ignorant of that, but there was enough besides to afford a choice +bone of gossip to folk sunken in the monotony and isolation of a +Vermont country winter. The women put their heads together over it at +their quilting-bees, and the men in their lounging-places in the +store and tavern. This mystery, which endured as well as their +hard-packed snows, and kept their imaginations always upon the +stretch, was a great acquisition to them. Plenty of mental activity +was there in Ware Centre that winter, and the brains of many were +smartly at work upon some of those problems whose conditions, being +all unknown quantities of character and circumstance and fate, are +beyond all rules of solution.</p> + +<p>Would Burr Gordon marry Dorothy Fair, or would he, after all, turn +again to his old love, who had shown such devotion to him that it had +almost turned her brain? Unless, indeed—for there is room in +gossip for all suspicion, and surmise can never be quite laid at +rest—her brain had not been turned, and she had struck the +blow, as she said. But, in that case, why had Lot taken her guilt +upon himself? Why had he cleared Burr at his own expense, and saved +her? If he had done it for love of Madelon, he had also set his rival +free to woo her, and had established her innocence in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Lot still lived. Would he die, finally, of his wound or of his +disease? Would he recover and come out of his house alive again? Time +went on, and the people knew no more than they knew at first; but +they continued to watch, crossing the gleams of all the neighboring +window-panes with sharp lines of attention, hushing conversation in +the store if a Hautville or a Gordon entered, and rolling keen eyes +over shoulders after meeting one of them upon the country roads. But +especially they were alert in the meeting-house upon Sabbath days. +Their eyes were slyly keen upon Dorothy Fair, softly wrapped in her +blue wadded silk and swan's-down, holding up her head with gentle +state in the parson's pew; upon Burr Gordon, somewhat pale and moody +in his smart Sunday coat; and Madelon, up in the singing-seats. They +never, in those days, saw Madelon elsewhere. She went to meeting +every Sabbath day and sang as usual, but between the hymns she sat +with her beautiful face as irresponsive to all around her as a +painted portrait, and more so, for the eyes of a portrait will often +seem to follow an ardent gazer. Madelon's father and brothers, except +Richard and Louis, who kept their own counsel, were much bewildered +among themselves at her strange mood, and were inclined to hold the +opinion that her wits were a little shaken, and, moreover, to keep it +quiet and secret from everybody until she should be quite restored. +They said little to her, treating her with a kind of forbearing +compassion; but the indignation of them all was fierce, although held +well in check, against Burr Gordon. Him they held accountable for +all.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon might well have been quit of any charge of cowardice +had he shrunk from facing the male Hautvilles on those days. They +passed him in the road with the looks of surly dogs in leash. None of +them except Eugene gave him a nod of recognition. Eugene bowed +always, with his unfailing grace of courtesy, but he hated him more +than all the others, for he was jealous on his own account as well as +his sister's. It was said that Burr Gordon, since his acquittal, was +courting Dorothy Fair steadily, although they had not been seen out +together.</p> + +<p>Burr had been to the Hautville house twice since his return from +New Salem, but had not been admitted. Once when he called Madelon had +been alone in the house, and caught a glimpse of her old lover coming +into the yard. She had sprung up, letting her needle-work slide to +the floor, and fled with her face as white as death and her heart +beating hard into the freezing best room, and stood back in a corner +out of range of the windows, and listened to the taps of the knocker +and finally to Burr's retreating steps. Then she crept across to a +window and peered around the curtain, and watched him out of sight as +if her soul would follow him; then she stole out the door and looked +up and down to see if anybody was in sight; and then she flung +herself down upon her knees and kissed her lover's cold footprint in +the snow.</p> + +<p>The second time Burr came was on an evening, when her father and +all her brothers except Richard were at the singing-school. She knew +Burr's step when he drew near the door, and bade Richard shortly to +answer the knock, and say she was busy and could see nobody, which he +did with all the emphasis which his fiery young blood could put into +words of dismissal. The boy, of all the others, alone knew a reason +why he should be more lenient with Burr; and yet this very reason +seemed to swell his wrath and hold him more deeply responsible for a +deeper disgrace. When he had shut the door hard upon Burr, he turned +to his sister. “I would have killed him rather than let him +in,” said he.</p> + +<p>Madelon took another stitch in her work. Her face looked as if it +were carved in marble. Richard stood staring at her a second; then he +flung out of the room, and the doors closing behind him shook the +house. Richard's manner towards his sister was sometimes full of a +fierce sympathy and partisanship, sometimes of wild anger and +aversion. He looked ten years older in a few weeks. Both he and Louis +appeared to avoid the other members of the family, and kept much +together, and yet even in their close companionship they also seemed +to have a curious avoidance of each other; one was seldom seen to +look in his brother's face, or address him directly.</p> + +<p>One morning, a month after Burr's release, Margaret Bean came to +the Hautville door. She was well wrapped against the cold, her head +especially being swathed about with lengths of knitted scarf over her +silk hood; there was only a thin sharp gleam of face out of it, like +a very lance of intelligence. Margaret held out the stiff white +corner of a letter from the folds of her shawl. “He sent +it,” she said to Madelon, who came to the door.</p> + +<p>Madelon opened the letter and read it. “I can't come,” +she said, shortly. “I'm busy. Tell him he must write what he +wants to tell me.”</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean's eyes were sharp as steel points. She had not known +what was in the letter. “Hey?” said she, pretending that +she had not heard, in order to make Madelon repeat and perhaps reveal +more.</p> + +<p>“I can't come,” said Madelon. “He can write what +he wants to tell me.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly a great red flush spread over her pale face and her neck. +She lowered her eyes before the other woman as if in utter +degradation of shame, and shrank back into the house and closed the +door in Margaret Bean's face.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean stood for a moment, a silent, shapeless figure in +the cold air. “Pretty actions, I call it,” said she then, +quite loudly, and went out of the yard with a curious tilting motion +on slender ankles, as of a balancing bale of wool.</p> + +<p>Madelon slipped her letter into her pocket as she entered the +kitchen. Her father and all her brothers were there. It was shortly +after breakfast, and they had not yet gone out.</p> + +<p>“Who was it at the door?” her father asked. He sat by +the fire in his great boots.</p> + +<p>“Margaret Bean.”</p> + +<p>“What did she want?”</p> + +<p>“Lot Gordon sent for me to come over there.”</p> + +<p>“What for?”</p> + +<p>“He wanted—to—tell me something.”</p> + +<p>“You ain't going a step. I can tell ye that.”</p> + +<p>“I—told her I couldn't go,” said Madelon. Her +voice was almost breathless, and still that red of shame was over her +face. She bent her head and turned her back to them all, and went out +of the room. The male Hautvilles looked at one another. “What's +come over the girl now?” said Abner, in his surly bass +growl.</p> + +<p>“She's a woman,” said his father, and he stamped his +booted feet on the floor with a great clamp.</p> + +<p>Madelon meantime fled up-stairs to her chamber, with her first +love-letter from Lot Gordon in her pocket. Until this the reality of +all that had happened had not fully come home to her. Without +acknowledging it to herself she had entertained a half-hope that Lot +might not have been entirely in earnest—that he might not hold +her to her promise. And then there had been the uncertainty as to his +recovery. But here was this letter, in which Lot Gordon called +her—her, Madelon Hautville—his sweetheart, and begged her +to come to him, as he had something of importance to say to her! He +used, moreover, terms of endearment which thrilled her with the +stinging shame of lashes upon her bare shoulders at the public +whipping-post. She lit the candle on her table, snatched the letter +out of her pocket, crumpled it fiercely as if it were some live thing +that she would crush the life out of, and then held it to the +candle-flame until it burned away, and the last flashes of it +scorched her fingers. Then she caught a sight of her own miserable, +shamed face in her looking-glass, and flushed redder and struck +herself in her face angrily, and then fell to walking up and down her +little room.</p> + +<p>Her father and brothers down below heard her, and looked at each +other.</p> + +<p>“There was that Emmeline Littlefield that went mad, and fell +to walking all the time,” said Abner.</p> + +<p>The others listened to the footsteps overhead with a gloomy assent +of silence.</p> + +<p>“They had to keep her in a room with an iron grate on the +window,” said Abner, further, with a pale scowl.</p> + +<p>Then David Hautville took down his leather jacket from its peg +with a jerk, and thrust his arm into it. “I tell ye, she's a +<em>woman</em>,” he said, in a shout, as if to drown out those +hurrying steps; and then he went out of the room and the house, and +disappeared with axe on shoulder across the snowy reach of fields; +and presently all his sons except Eugene followed him. Eugene +remained to keep watch over his sister.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XV</h4> + +<p>After his father and brothers were gone, Eugene got Louis's fiddle +out of the chimney-cupboard and fell to playing with an imperfect +touch, picking out a tune slowly, with halts between the strains, as +if he spelled a word with stammering syllables. Eugene's musical +expression was in his throat alone; his fingers were almost powerless +to bring out the meaning of sweet sounds. A drunken crew on a rolling +vessel might have danced to the tune that Eugene Hautville fingered +on his brother's fiddle that morning while his sister walked back and +forth overhead, running the gantlet, as it were, of an agony which +his masculine imagination could not compass, well tutored as it was +by the lessons of his Shakespeare book.</p> + +<p>When Margaret Bean came to the door the second time she heard the +squeak of the fiddle, and clanged the knocker loud to overcome it. +Madelon and Eugene reached the door at the same time, and Margaret +Bean extended another letter. “Here's another,” said she, +shortly, to Madelon. She tucked the hand which had held the letter +under her shawl and hugged herself with a shiver, ostentatiously. +“I'm most froze, traipsin' back and forth, I know that +much,” she muttered.</p> + +<p>Eugene stood aside with a flourish and a graceful, beckoning wave +of his hand. “Won't you come in and warm yourself?” he +said, and he smiled in her face as if she and no other were the love +of his heart.</p> + +<p>But Margaret Bean had a shrewd understanding which no grace of +flattery could dazzle, and felt truly that nowadays her principal +claim to masculine admiration lay in her fine starching specialty of +housewifery; and of that she gave no show, bundled up against the +cold in her shapeless wools. So she put aside the young man's smiling +courtesy scornfully, as not belonging to her, and spoke in a voice as +sharp as an edge of her own well-stiffened linens. “No, +sir,” said Margaret Bean; “I've got bread in the oven and +I can't stop, and I ain't coming in for two or three minutes and set +with my things on, and get all chilled through when I go out. I'll +stand here while your sister reads that letter. He said the answer +would be just ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and I shouldn't +have to wait long. ‘She ain't one to teeter long on a +decision,’ says he; ‘she finds her footin' one side or +the other.’ He talks queer, queerer'n ever sence he was hurt. +I pity anybody that gets him.”</p> + +<p>“Tell him ‘yes,’” said Madelon, abruptly; +and then she wheeled about and went into the house.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Margaret Bean, harshly. The door closed +before her; Eugene had forgotten his courtesy, and followed his +sister into the house without a good-day to the guest.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean stood for a minute looking at the house, with its +yawn of blank windows in her face; then she went out of the yard, +bearing her message to Lot Gordon.</p> + +<p>Eugene Hautville was startled at the look on Madelon's face when +she went into the house. “Madelon, what is it?” he said, +softly. But she did not answer him a word; she ran across the room +and thrust Lot Gordon's letter into the fire. Eugene followed her and +turned her about gently, and looked keenly in her white face.</p> + +<p>“What was in that latter?” said he.</p> + +<p>Madelon shook her head dumbly.</p> + +<p>“Madelon?”</p> + +<p>“Wait. You will know soon. I can't tell you,” she +gasped out then.</p> + +<p>“Was it from Lot Gordon?”</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>“What is he writing to you about? You are my sister, and I +have a right to know.”</p> + +<p>“Wait,” she gasped again. “Oh, Eugene, wait. +I—can't—”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Madelon hung heavy on her brother's arm. +“Madelon,” he cried out loudly to her, as if she were +deaf—“Madelon, don't! You needn't tell me. +Madelon!”</p> + +<p>Eugene almost lifted his sister into the rocking-chair on the +hearth, and hastened to get her a cup of water; but when he returned +with it she motioned it away, and was sitting up, stern and straight +and white, but quite conscious.</p> + +<p>“Hadn't you better drink it, Madelon?” pleaded +Eugene.</p> + +<p>“No. What do I want it for? I am quite well,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“You almost fainted away.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want it.”</p> + +<p>Eugene set the cup on the dresser; then he came back to Madelon, +and stood over her, looking at her, his dark face as pitiful as a +woman's. “Madelon, why can't you tell me what new thing is +making you act like this?” he said. Madelon made an impatient +motion and started up, and would have gone out of the room, but +Eugene flung an arm around her and held her firmly. “What is +it, poor girl?” he whispered in her ear.</p> + +<p>Madelon had soft woman's blood in her veins, after all. Suddenly +she shook convulsively, and would have kept her face firm, but she +could not. She put her head on her brother's shoulder, and sobbed and +wept as he had never seen her do, even when she was a child, for she +had never been one to cry when she was hurt. Eugene sat down in the +rocking-chair with his sister on his knee, and smoothed her dark hair +as gently as her mother might have done. “Poor girl! poor +girl!” he kept whispering; but, softly caressing as his voice +was, his eyes, staring over his sister's head at the fire, got a +fierce and fiercer look; for he was thinking of Burr Gordon and +cursing him in his heart for all this. “Good Lord, Madelon, +can't you put that fellow out of your head?” he cried out, +sharply, all at once.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon hushed her sobs, with a stern grip of her will upon +her quivering nerves, and raised herself up and away from him. +“That has nothing to do with this,” she said, coldly. +“Let me go now, Eugene.”</p> + +<p>But Eugene held her strongly with a hand on either arm, and +scanned her keenly with his indignant eyes. “He is at the root +of the whole matter,” said he, “and you know it. I +wish—”</p> + +<p>“I tell you Burr Gordon has nothing to do with this last. He +knows nothing of it. Let me go, Eugene.”</p> + +<p>But Eugene still held her and looked at her. +“Madelon—”</p> + +<p>“What? I can sit here no longer. I have work to do. There is +nothing the matter with me. I have nothing to complain of. What I do +I do of my own free will.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” whispered Eugene, with a red flush stealing +over his dark face, his eyes dropping a little before her, “you +don't—think she will—marry him?”</p> + +<p>“Who? Dorothy?”</p> + +<p>Eugene nodded.</p> + +<p>“Of course she will—marry him, Eugene +Hautville.”</p> + +<p>Eugene set his sister down suddenly and got up. “All I've +got to say is, then,” he cried, with a movement of his right +arm like a blow, “it's a damned shame that the child can't be +taken care of among us all.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Eugene Hautville?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that she had better lie down in her grave than marry +that—”</p> + +<p>“Take care what you say, Eugene.”</p> + +<p>“I say she had—”</p> + +<p>“Better lie down in her grave than marry him—than +marry Burr Gordon? What do you mean? Who are you, that you talk in +this way? He is better than you all; not one of you is fit to tie his +shoe.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon, are you mad? He is a lying villain, and you know +it, and—God knows it's only on her account I speak. Some one +ought to tell her.”</p> + +<p>“Tell her, tell her! What do you think I would tell her if I +were to speak? If she were to come to me and ask me if Burr ever +courted me and played me false for her, I would tell her, no, no, no! +If she were to ask me if Burr ever kissed me, or said a fond word to +me, or gave me a fond look, I would tell her, and this last is the +truth, that he never gave me more than a passing thought, and 'twas +only my own short-sightedness and conceit that made me think 'twas +more than that, shame to me! Isn't he a man, and shouldn't a man look +well about him among us to be sure his heart is set? I'd tell her +'twas something for her to hold up her head for among other women all +the days of her life, because he chose her. That's what I'd tell +her.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon!”</p> + +<p>“Dorothy Fair shall not cheat Burr now, when he has set his +heart upon her. It would be worse than all that has gone before. I +tell you I won't bear that. He shall have her if he wants her. He has +suffered enough.”</p> + +<p>“But you—you,” gasped Eugene. “I thought +you—I thought you wanted him yourself, Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“I've gone past myself. All I think of now is what he +wants,” said she, shortly. She turned to go out of the room; +then she stopped and spoke to him over her shoulder: “There's +no need of talking any more about it.” She added: “I +know what I've set out to do, and I can go through with it.” +Then the door shut after her, and Eugene sat down with his +Shakespeare book. But he could not read; he sat moodily puzzling over +his sister, whose unfulfilled drama of life held his mind better than +them all.</p> + +<p>But puzzle as he might, he never once dreamed of the +truth—that his sister Madelon had promised to marry Lot Gordon +in a month's time, and sent her “yes” by word of mouth of +Margaret Bean that morning. Somehow, even with the ashes of the +letter of proposal before his eyes on the hearth, and his sister's +“yes” ringing in his ears, knowing as he did that Lot as +well as Burr had lost his heart to her, he could not conceive of such +a possibility. He was too well acquainted with Madelon's attitude +towards Lot, and she had never been one to walk whither she did not +list for any man. He could not imagine the possibility, well versed +as he was, through his Shakespeare lessons, in the feminine heart, of +his sister's yielding her proud maiden will to any man. He would as +soon have thought of a wild-cat which he had trailed in the woods, +which knew him as his mortal enemy, whose eyes had followed him with +stealthy fury out of a way-side bush, to unbend from the crouch of +its spring and walk purring tamely into his house at call, and fall +to lapping milk out of a saucer on the hearth. But no man can +estimate the possibilities of character under the lever of +circumstances, and there is power enough abroad to tame the savage in +all nature. Madelon Hautville had yielded to a stress of which her +brother knew nothing, and he therefore scouted the idea, if it +crossed his mind like a wild fancy, of her yielding at all. He rather +came to the conclusion that the letter had announced Burr's +engagement to Dorothy Fair, and that Madelon's “yes” had +signified proud approval of it. He leaned to this conclusion the +sooner because of the miserable tendency which a jealous heart has to +force all suspicions to open its own sore. “He's going to marry +Dorothy Fair,” Eugene told himself. “It was like Lot to +tell Madelon, and ask her if she was pleased with it. And that was +why she acted so. Her heart broke at first and she cried, and then +she stood up and hid it. He's going to marry Dorothy Fair!”</p> + +<p>Eugene had a strong imagination, whereby he could suffer a +thousandfold, if he would, every woe of his life. Sitting now by his +hearth fire, with his Shakespeare book, full of the joys and sorrows +of immortal lovers, disregarded upon his knees, he let his fancy show +him many a picture which tore his heart, although look upon it he +would. He saw Dorothy Fair in her wedding-gown; he saw her blush like +a rose through her bridal lace; he saw her following Burr up the +meeting-house aisle the Sabbath after her marriage with a soft +rustling of silken finery, and a toss of white bridal plumes over her +fair locks. He saw those glances, which he swore to himself boldly +enough then had first been his, turned upon his rival; he imagined +sweet words and caresses which he had never tasted, and were +perchance the sweeter for that, bestowed upon Burr.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he started up and flung down his book upon the settle, +and put on his fur cap and was out of the house. “The first +turn of her heart was towards me, and I was the first man she coupled +with love in her thoughts, and nothing can undo it,” he said, +aloud, fiercely to himself as he went up the lonely snowy road; and +he believed it then. Those soft blue glances of Dorothy's came back +to him so vividly that he seemed to see them anew whenever his eyes +fell upon the way-side bushes, or the cloud-shadowed slopes of white +fields, or the dark gaps of solitude between the forest pines.</p> + +<p>For the first time a fierce insistence of his rights of love was +upon him. Straight to the village he went, and to Parson Fair's +house. But he did not enter; his madness was not great enough for +that. He did not enter, but he went past with a bold, searching look +at all the windows and no pretence of indifference, and up the road a +little way. Then he returned and passed the house again, and looked +again; and this time Dorothy's face showed between the dimity sweeps +of her chamber curtains. He half stopped, and then came another +glance of blue eyes which verified those that had gone before, +straight into his, which replied with a dark flash of ardor, and then +Dorothy's face went red all of a sudden, and there was a vanishing +curve of blushing cheek and a flirt aside of fair curls, and the +space between the dimity curtains was clear.</p> + +<p>Eugene stood still beneath the window for a few minutes. There +were watchful eyes in the neighboring windows. In the tavern-yard, +farther down the street, Dexter Beers and old Luke Basset stood, also +fixedly staring at Parson Fair's house.</p> + +<p>“Wonder if he thinks there's any trouble—fire or +anything,” said Dexter Beers.</p> + +<p>“Don't see no smoke,” said old Luke.</p> + +<p>Eugene Hautville, rapt in that abstraction of love which is the +completest in the world, and makes indeed a world of its own across +eternal spaces, knew nothing and thought nothing of outside +observers. He was half minded for a minute to enter Parson Fair's +house. Had Dorothy appeared outside, the impulse to seize her and +bear her away with him and fight for her possession against all odds, +like any male of his old savage tribe when love stirred his veins, +would have been strong within him. But she did not come, nor appear +again in the window. She stood well around the curtain and peeped; +but he did not know that, and presently he went away.</p> + +<p>When he passed the tavern Dexter Beers hailed him. “Say, +anythin' wrong to the parson's?”</p> + +<p>“No,” returned Eugene, sharply, and strode on.</p> + +<p>“Didn't know but you see smoke, you were lookin' up at the +house so stiddy,” called Beers, conciliatingly; but Eugene +swung down the road without another look. All his grace of manner was +forgot in the stir of passion within him. What had Dorothy Fair meant +by that look? Was she betrothed to Burr Gordon? Was she playing with +him for her own amusement? And what was he to do, what could he do, +for the sake of his love, with honor?</p> + +<p>Eugene left the road after he had cleared the village, and struck +off across the fields for a long tramp through snowy solitudes as +well known to him as, and better suited to him for perplexed thoughts +than, any place in his home. In a way, out-doors was the truest home +of all these Hautvilles, with the strain of wild nomadic blood in +their veins.</p> + +<p>The sight of the little fireless dwellings of woodland things, the +empty nests revealed on the naked trees, the scattered berries on +leafless bushes, the winter larders of birds, the tiny track of a +wild hare or a partridge in the snow, disturbed less the current of +their inmost life, as being more the wonted surroundings of their +existence, than all the sounds and sights and savors within four +domestic walls.</p> + +<p>Eugene tramped on for miles over paths well known to him, which +were hidden now beneath the snow, pondering upon himself and Dorothy +Fair, and never gave his sister, whose guardian he had been, another +thought.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVI</h4> + +<p>Madelon, half an hour after Eugene had left, put on her cloak and +hood, and went down the road to Lot Gordon's. “I want to see +him a minute,” she said to Margaret Bean when the woman +answered her knock, and went in with no more ado. Her face was white +and stern in the shadow of her hood.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean recoiled a little when she looked at her. +“He's up,” said she, backing before her, half as if she +were afraid. “I guess you can walk right in.”</p> + +<p>Madelon went into the sitting-room, and Lot's face confronted her +at once, white and peaked, with hollow blue eyes lit, as of old, with +a mocking intelligence of life.</p> + +<p>He was sunken amid multifold wrappings in a great chair before the +fire, with a great leathern-bound book on his knees. Beside him was a +little stand with writing-paper thereon, and sealing-wax and a +candle, a quill pen and an inkstand. All the room was lined with +books, and was full of the musty smell of them.</p> + +<p>Madelon went straight up to Lot and spoke out with no word of +greeting. “I have sent your answer,” said she. “I +will keep my promise, but have you thought well of what you do, Lot +Gordon?”</p> + +<p>Lot looked up at her and smiled, and the smile gave a curiously +gentle look to his face, in spite of the sharp light in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“The thought has been my meat and my drink, my medicine and +my breath of life,” said he.</p> + +<p>“If I were a man I would rather—take a snake to my +breast than a woman who held me as one—”</p> + +<p>“Two parallel lines can sooner meet than a woman know the +heart of a man. What do I care so I hold you to mine?”</p> + +<p>Madelon stood farther away from him, but her eyes did not fall +before his.</p> + +<p>“Why did you lie” said she. “You knew I stabbed +you, and not yourself. You are a liar, Lot Gordon.”</p> + +<p>But Lot still smiled as he answered her. “However it may be +with other men, no happening has come to me since I set foot upon +this earth that I brought not upon myself by my own deeds. The hand +that set the knife in my side was my own, and I have not +lied.”</p> + +<p>“You have lied. Tell them the truth.”</p> + +<p>“I have told the truth that lies at the bottom of the +well.”</p> + +<p>“Call them all in now, and tell them—I—did it, +I—”</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon raised himself a little, and looked at her with the +mocking expression gone suddenly from his face. “What good do +you think it would do if I did, Madelon?” he said, with a +strange sadness in his voice.</p> + +<p>She looked at him.</p> + +<p>“I shall not die of the wound. You can't escape me by prison +or a disgraceful death, and as for me, do you think it would make any +difference to me if all the village pointed at you, +Madelon?”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him as if she were frozen.</p> + +<p>“All the way to be set loose from your promise is by your +own breaking it,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>“I will keep my promise,” said Madelon, shutting her +lips hard upon her words. She turned away.</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>She went towards the door as if she did not hear.</p> + +<p>“Madelon.”</p> + +<p>She turned her white face slightly towards him and paused.</p> + +<p>“Won't you come here to me a moment?”</p> + +<p>“I cannot until I am driven to it!” she cried out, +passion leaping into her voice like fire. “I cannot go near +you, Lot Gordon!”</p> + +<p>She opened the door, and then she heard a sob. She hesitated a +second, then looked around; and Lot Gordon's thin body was curled +about in his chair and quivering with sobs like any child's.</p> + +<p>Madelon closed the door, and went back and stood over him. She +looked at him with a curious expression of pity struggling with +loathing, as she might have looked at some wounded reptile.</p> + +<p>“Well, I am here,” she said, in a harsh voice.</p> + +<p>“All my life my heart has had nothing, and now what it has +it has not,” moaned Lot, as if it had been to his mother. He +looked up at her with his hollow blue eyes swimming in tears. He +seemed for a minute like a little ailing boy appealing for sympathy, +and the latent motherhood in the girl responded to that.</p> + +<p>“You know I cannot help that, Lot,” she said. +“You know how you forced me into this to save the one I do +love.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, can't you love me?”</p> + +<p>She shrank away from him and shook her head, but still her dark +eyes were soft upon his face.</p> + +<p>“Does not love for you count anything? I love you more than +he—I do, Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“It is no use talking, I can never love you, Lot,” she +said, but gently.</p> + +<p>“It ought to count. Love ought to count, dear. It is the +best thing in the world we have to give. And I have given it to you; +oh, God, how have I given it to you, Madelon!”</p> + +<p>“Lot, don't—it's no use.”</p> + +<p>“Listen—you must listen, dear. You must hear it once. +It can't turn you more against me. You don't know how I have loved +you—you don't know. Listen. Never a morning have I waked but +the knowledge of you came before the consciousness of myself. Never a +night I fell asleep but 'twas you, you I lost last, and not myself. +When I have been sick the sting of my longing for you has dulled all +my pain of body. If I die I see not how that can die with me, for it +is of my soul. I see not why I must not bear it forever.”</p> + +<p>“Lot, I must go!”</p> + +<p>“Listen, Madelon; you must listen. When I have taken my +solitary walks in the woods and pried into the secrets of the little +wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own +musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—I cannot +tell you how, but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in +every bird-call and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed +things across the open. Every white alder-bush in the spring raised +you up anew before me to madden me with vain longing, and every red +sumach in the fall. When I have sat here alone every book I have +opened has had in it a meaning of you which the writer knew not of. +You are in all my forethoughts and my memories and my imaginations. +The future has your face, and the past. My whole world is made up of +you and my vain hunger. Oh, love, and not toil, is the curse of +man!”</p> + +<p>“You knew about Burr,” Madelon said, in a quiet, +agitated voice. “Why—did you?”</p> + +<p>Lot gave a sharp cry, as if he had been wounded anew. +“Oh,” he cried, “you are blind, blind, +blind—a woman is born blind to love! If I had had the face and +the body of him it would have been me you would have turned to, +Madelon. Don't you know? can't you see? He has been false to you, he +cares no more for you. But if he had? In the end it is love and love +alone that sweetens life, and what could his love be to +mine?”</p> + +<p>Madelon turned away again. “I can't stand here any longer, +Lot,” she said, and moved towards the door.</p> + +<p>But Lot called her piteously: “Madelon, come back! If you +have any mercy, come back!”</p> + +<p>She stood irresolute, frowning; then she went back. “What is +it?” she asked, impatiently.</p> + +<p>“Madelon, kiss me once.”</p> + +<p>“I can't—I can't! Don't ask that of me, +Lot.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon, once!”</p> + +<p>Madelon bent over him, keeping her body stiffly aloof, and kissed +him on his hollow forehead. Lot closed his eyes and smiled like a +contented child; then suddenly he opened them upon Madelon, and the +look in them was not a child's. She shrank away with a strong +shudder, flushing with anger and shame, and made resolutely for the +door again. She looked back and spoke out sharply to him, with her +hand on the latch: “Mind you do not say one word +about—what I said I'd do, until the last.” Then she went +out, flinging to the door quickly lest she hear Lot's voice +again.</p> + +<p>When she got home there was no one there. Eugene had not returned. +She went about preparing dinner as usual; it was on the table when +the men, all except Eugene, came home, and none of them dreamed she +had left the house. They inquired where Eugene was, and she replied +that she did not know. They did not suspect that she had taken +advantage of this lack of guardianship, and yet there was something +unwonted in her manner which led them to look at each other furtively +when they first noticed it. The perfect poise of decision at which +she had arrived affected their minds in some subtle fashion. Eugene, +when he returned late in the afternoon, noticed the change in her, in +spite of his own perturbation. He looked hard at her staid face, +fixed into a sort of unquestioning and dignified acquiescence with +misery, but he said nothing. Madelon, in this state, was not to be +questioned even by her father. He simply muttered to himself, as he +strode out of the room, that she was a woman.</p> + +<p>Madelon's manner was the same as the days went on. There ceased to +be any question as to her sanity among her father and brothers. She +no longer paced overhead like a wild thing. She no longer made fierce +outbreaks of despairing appeal. They no longer kept watch over her +lest she commit some folly, and became easier in their minds about +her.</p> + +<p>They made no objections when, three weeks later, she asked for the +sleigh and the roan to go to New Salem and make some purchases for +herself. She went early in the afternoon, and returned in good season +with her parcels. They did not dream that she had been in a strange +spirit of bitterness and shameful misery and feminine pride to +purchase her wedding-gown for her marriage with Lot Gordon.</p> + +<p>Her frantic and unreasoning impulse of concealment was still +strong. It was almost as if the whole horror of it were not so +plainly thrust upon her if none but she knew it; then there was the +agony of shame which made her fain to turn her back and deafen her +ears to her own self, let alone all these others.</p> + +<p>They rather wondered, the next morning, when they saw Madelon +seated at work upon some shining lengths of silk, at the magnificence +of her purchase in New Salem; but they knew that she had a little +private fund of her own, which they had never questioned her right to +spend.</p> + +<p>“Guess she's been saving her egg-and-butter money,” +Abner said, when she went out for something.</p> + +<p>His father nodded. “Glad she's got a new gown. Guess she'll +show folks she ain't quite done for on account of that fellow,” +he said.</p> + +<p>When Madelon was seated at her work again, and he passed her to +leave the room, he laid a heavy, caressing hand on her black head. +“Glad ye've got ye a handsome gown,” said he. “It's +money well spent.”</p> + +<p>That day there was a great snow-storm—the last of the +season. There had been many such that winter. Snow fell upon snow, +and the bare ground was never seen. This time the storm lasted two +days. On the morning of the third the sun came out and the wind blew. +There was a northern gale all day. The new snow arose like a white +spirit from its downfall, and was again all abroad in the air. It +moved across the fields in great diamond-glittering shafts; it +crested itself over the brows of hills in flashing waves; it +lengthened its sharp slants of white light from hour to hour against +the windward sides of the fences and houses.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the next day everything was still. The snow lay +transfixed in blue whirlpools around the trees; the fields were full +of frozen eddies, and the hill-tops curled with white wave-crests +which never broke. There was a dead calm, and the mercury was +fourteen degrees below zero. Everything seemed in the white region of +death after the delirium of storm. That morning Madelon Hautville, +after her household tasks were done, sat down again to sew her +wedding-dress. The silk was of changeable tints, and flashed in +patches of green and gold as it lay over her knee and swept around +her to the floor.</p> + +<p>All the others had gone, but presently, as she sewed, Richard came +in with some parcels. He had been on an errand to the store. He +tossed the packages on the dresser, then he went and stood directly +in front of his sister, looking at her.</p> + +<p>“I want to know if it's true,” said he.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon knew that he had heard. “Yes,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“And that is—” Richard pointed at the silk.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Richard continued to look at his sister and the gorgeous silk. +There was consternation in his look, and withal a certain relief. Boy +as he was, he reasoned it out astutely. If Madelon married Lot Gordon +the merest shadow of suspicion that her confession had been true +would not cling to her, and Richard hated Burr, and was fiercely +triumphant that he should not think his sister dying for love of him; +and then Burr would lose the Gordon money.</p> + +<p>All at once Madelon rose up, let her silk breadths slip rustling +to the floor, and took Richard by the shoulder. +“Richard,” she said, “why could you not have told +the truth about the knife, and not forced me to this? Why could you +not?”</p> + +<p>The boy looked aside from her doggedly. “I don't know what +you mean about a knife,” said he, but his voice shook.</p> + +<p>“Yes, you do know, Richard! It is all over now. I must marry +Lot. I have promised. I shall not try to escape it—I shall not +try again to make people believe it was I. If you were to tell the +truth now it would do no good. But you must tell me this, Richard. +How came Burr Gordon's knife there instead of yours?”</p> + +<p>The boy hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Richard, you know you can trust me.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said Richard, slowly, in a low voice, “I +came right up behind Burr before you were hardly out of sight. I'd +got uneasy about your going home alone, and I'd thought I'd follow +you unbeknown to you, and turn 'round and go back when you were safe +in sight of home. Burr pulled my knife out of the wound quick and +wiped it on the snow. ‘Take it quick,’ says he, and I +knew what he meant, and put it in my pocket, and slid out of sight in +the bushes; and then he whipped out his knife and laid it in the pool +of blood, and the others came up, and 'twas all done in a second. +That's how.”</p> + +<p>“He did it to save me,” said Madelon, and her voice +was fuller of exultant sweetness than it had ever been in a song.</p> + +<p>“He's a rascal, that's what he is!” said Richard. +“If he hadn't treated you so, it wouldn't ever have +happened.”</p> + +<p>“He did it to save me,” said Madelon, as if to +herself; “it's worth all I'm going to do to save him.” +She sat down again, and took up her wedding-dress, and resumed +sewing. Richard stood looking at her a minute; then he got his gun +off the hooks where he kept it, put on his fur cap, and went out.</p> + +<p>Madelon sat and sewed, in a broad slant of wintry sunshine, for an +hour longer. Then a shadow passed suddenly athwart the floor, the +door opened, and Burr Gordon was in the room. He came straight across +to her, but she sat still and drew her needle through her +wedding-silk.</p> + +<p>“Madelon!” he cried out, “is this true that I +have just heard? Madelon!”—Burr Gordon's handsome face +was white as death, and he breathed hard, as if he had been +running—“Madelon! tell me, for God's sake, is +it—true?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Madelon. She took another stitch. The +self-restraint of her New England mother was upon her then. Burr +Gordon, betrothed to Dorothy Fair, loving her not, yet still noble +enough and kind enough to have perilled his life to save hers, should +know nothing of the greater sacrifice she was making for him.</p> + +<p>“You are going to marry—Lot?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my God!”</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon stood a moment looking at the girl sewing the breadths +of shining silk. Then he went over to the settle and sat down there +and bent over, leaning his head on his hands. He knew no more at that +moment of Madelon's mind than an utter stranger.</p> + +<p>It well might be, he thought, that she no longer cared for him. It +was not long since she had seemed to, but women, he had always heard, +were fickle, and he had so treated her that it might have turned any +woman's heart cold. And his cousin Lot had the family wealth, and if +she married him she would inherit it, and not he. What could he say +to her, sewing so calmly upon her wedding-dress, seemingly in utter +acquiescence and content with her fate? Could he take another step +without going deeper into the slough of shame and distress where it +seemed to him he already stood? And there was Dorothy.</p> + +<p>Madelon never glanced at him as she sewed. Presently he arose and +went over to her again. “Madelon,” he said, hesitatingly, +coloring red, “tell me you do not have any hard feelings +towards me? I know I deserve it.”</p> + +<p>“You deserve nothing; it is I,” she said, in a low +voice.</p> + +<p>“<em>You!</em>”</p> + +<p>“I know what you did to save my life,” she said. Her +voice gave out a rich thrill, like a musical tone, as she spoke. She +bent lower over her work.</p> + +<p>“That was nothing. Madelon”—he paused a moment; +she was silent—“Madelon, tell me. Are you—are you +satisfied—with this step you are going to take?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“There is nothing I can do? You know I would +do—anything to— You know if you wished—I would do +whatever you said.”</p> + +<p>“You will marry Dorothy Fair,” Madelon said, in such a +tone of calm assertion that he quailed before it.</p> + +<p>“Then you—are satisfied to—marry Lot— It +is your wish?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my God!” said Burr, and went out, while Madelon +took another stitch in her wedding-gown.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVII</h4> + +<p>However the tale of Madelon's and Lot's engagement had found +mouth—whether Margaret Bean had vented her knowledge when it +grew too big for her or not—it was scarce one day before the +whole village was agape with it. With that tendency of the human mind +born of involuntary self-knowledge which leads it to suspect a +selfish motive in all untoward actions, many gave unhesitatingly a +reason for Madelon's choice.</p> + +<p>The women nodded astutely at each other, and the men exchanged +shrewd affirmative grunts. “She's goin' to marry Lot to pay off +Burr,” they all agreed. “She'll get all the +money.”</p> + +<p>Madelon herself had never thought of that. She had never +considered the fact that her marriage with Lot would rob Burr of his +prospective wealth; and, if she had, she would have dismissed the +thought as of no moment. Capacity for revenge of that sort was not in +her; even the imagination of it was lacking. She would simply have +resolved to give the property to Burr if she should outlive Lot, and +she would have carried out her resolution. Consciously, perhaps, this +consideration was no more evident to her father and her brothers than +to herself. The Hautvilles were not mercenary, and retaliation, +involving personal profit at the expense of an enemy, was not of +their code. They did have, however, a consideration no less selfish, +in a way, and no less acute when they heard the news. One and all +thought, “Now Madelon will be cleared of all suspicion that she +may have brought upon herself. Nobody will believe that Lot Gordon +would marry a girl who attempted his life. Every hint of disgrace +will be removed from her and us all by this marriage.”</p> + +<p>Louis, when he heard the news, gave an involuntary glance at his +own hands at the thought of Madelon's crimsoned ones, to which he had +tried to blind his memory. “Well, maybe it's the best thing +that could happen,” he said, grimly, but his wonder over it was +great. He knew well enough, however he tried to hide the knowledge +from himself, that Madelon's story had been true. He looked at his +brother Richard, and Richard looked back at him; and one's knowledge +for once faced the other's boldly in their utter astonishment. Then +they nodded at each other in a stern understanding of assent. It was +best their sister should cover her crime and avert the disgrace, +which she had seemed to hang over all of them, in that way.</p> + +<p>When the male Hautvilles came home to dinner, on the noon of the +day after Burr called, Madelon knew at once that they had all heard. +They sat down to the table and ate in silence. None of them spoke a +word to Madelon on the subject, but she knew they had heard. After +dinner they all went out again except her father. He stood on the +hearth, filling his pipe moodily, with an automatic motion of his +fingers, his eyes aloof. Madelon moved about with quick, decided +motions, clearing the dinner-table. David, when the tobacco was well +packed in his pipe-bowl, turned his eyes mechanically upon the +glowing coals on the hearth, but made no motion to light it. He +looked slowly and furtively about presently at Madelon's +wedding-silk, which lay heaped in a chair with a green and gold +shimmer, as of leaves and flowers. All unmoved by, and oblivious of, +the splendor of woman's gear was David Hautville usually, but this +silk, radiant with the weaving of party-lights, affected him with a +memory of old happiness, so vague that it was scarce more than a +memory of a memory. In splendid silken raiment had Madelon's mother +gone as a bride years ago. It had been in reality widely different +from this gown of Madelon's, but still, looking at this, David +Hautville's masculine eyes saw dimly beyond it another dapple of +gorgeous tints, and heard a soft rustle of silken skirts out of the +past. He would not have said that this bright mass of silk in the +chair made him think of his wife's wedding-gown, but he knew by that +thought it was Madelon's. He stared at it, scowling over his great +mustache. Then he looked slowly around at his daughter. She was just +coming out of the pantry, and faced him as he spoke.</p> + +<p>“I suppose this is true I've heard,” said he.</p> + +<p>Madelon's face blazed red before his eyes, but her mouth was firm +and hard, and her eyes unflinching. “Yes, sir,” she +replied; and she took a dish from the table and turned about, and +went again into the pantry, carrying it.</p> + +<p>David Hautville, rearing his great height before the fire, casting +a long shadow over the room, stood, holding his unlighted pipe, and +staring again at the wedding-silk, until his daughter returned. Then +he brought his gaze to bear upon her again.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you've thought over what you're going to do, and +feel it's for the best,” said he, with a kind of stern +embarrassment. David Hautville felt no resentment because his +daughter had not confided her engagement to him. From his very lack +of understanding of the feminine character, and his bewilderment over +it, he was disposed to give his daughter a wide latitude in a matter +of this kind. Not comprehending the feminine gait to matrimony, but +recognizing its inevitability, he was inclined to stand silently out +of the road, unless his prejudices were too violently shocked. He had +also a mild respect for, and understanding of, reticence concerning +one's own affairs, and was, moreover, furtively satisfied with the +match.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have,” answered Madelon, calmly.</p> + +<p>“How soon were you calculating—” asked her +father, pressing the tobacco harder into the pipe-bowl, and casting a +meditative eye at the coals.</p> + +<p>“He said a month—that was three weeks ago Monday. +To-day is Wednesday.” Madelon Hautville spoke with her proud +chin raised, and her eyes as compelling as a queen's; but in spite of +herself there came into her voice the tone of one who counts the days +to death.</p> + +<p>Her father looked at her sharply. She turned again towards her +task at the table. “Well, Lot Gordon can give ye a good +home,” said he. “His health ain't very good, that's the +most I see about it. But he may last a number of years +yet—folks in consumption do sometimes; and I hear he's gettin' +over that cut he give himself. I suppose he did that because he +thought you wouldn't have him.”</p> + +<p>Madelon, moving about the table, did not say a word.</p> + +<p>“It must have been that,” said David Hautville. +“I suppose he thought you favored—” he was about to +speak Burr's name; then he stopped short. He was usually one to +plunge upon dangerous ground, but this time something stopped +him—perhaps a look in his daughter's face. He laid his pipe +carefully on the mantel-shelf, went over to Madelon, and laid a +heavily tender hand on her shoulder.</p> + +<p>“D'ye want any money to buy your wedding-fixings +with?” he said, in a half-whisper.</p> + +<p>“I've got all I want,” replied Madelon, wincing as if +he had struck her.</p> + +<p>“Because I've sold some skins, lately, and wood.” +David plunged a hand into his pocket, and began to pull out a leather +pouch jingling with coins.</p> + +<p>“I've got all the money I want, father,” said Madelon, +catching her breath a little, but keeping her face steady. Could her +father have understood, if she had told him, the pretty maiden +providence, almost like one of the primal instincts, which had led +her to save, year after year, little sums from her small earnings, +towards her wedding-outfit? Could he, with his powerful masculine +grasp of the large woes of life, have sensed this lesser one, and +fairly known the piteous struggle it cost Madelon to spend her poor +little wealth, which was to have furnished adornment for her bridal +happiness with her lover, for such a purpose as this? Had she turned +upon him then and there, and told him that she hated Lot Gordon, and +would rather lie down in her grave than be his wife, he might have +grasped that indeed, although not in her full sense of it, for the +same sense of misery of that kind comes not to a man and a woman; but +the other he would have puzzled over and solved it by his one +sweeping solution of all feminine problems—by femininity +itself.</p> + +<p>However, he continued to stand beside his daughter, looking at her +across that great gulf of original conceptions of things which love +itself can never quite bridge. Tears came into his keen black eyes, +and his voice was hoarse when he spoke again. “Well, +Madelon,” said David Hautville, with a firmer laying on of his +heavy hand on his daughter's shoulder, “ye've been a good +daughter and sister, and we're all of us glad you've got over this +last foolishness, and we don't lay it up against ye, and—we'll +all miss ye when ye're gone.”</p> + +<p>Madelon moved quietly away from her father's roughly tender hand. +“I thought maybe the Widow Scoville would be willing to come +here and live,” said she. “She's a good cook and a good +housekeeper. I'm going to see her about it.”</p> + +<p>“Well, we'll see,” said David Hautville, +huskily—“we'll see.” He turned away, and looked +irresolutely at the shelf whereon his pipe lay, at the wedding-silk +on the chair, at his great boots in the corner at the outer door, +then at his bass-viol leaning in the corner which the dresser formed +against the wall, and a light of decision flashed into his eyes.</p> + +<p>He drew his old arm-chair nearer the fire, carried the viol over +to it, set it between his knees, flung an arm around its neck and +began to play. His great chest heaved tenderly over it; its sweetly +sonorous voice spoke to his soul. Here was the friend who vexed David +Hautville with no problems of character or sex, but filled his simple +understanding without appeal. These chords in which the viol spoke +were from the foundations of things, like the spring-time and the +harvest and the frosts; they abided eternally through all the vain +speculations of life, and sounded above the grave. No imagination of +a great artist had David Hautville, but his music was to him like his +woodcraft. He traced out the chords and the harmonies with the same +fervor that he followed the course of a stream or climbed a +mountain-path. A great player was he, although the power of creation +was not in him, for he fingered his viol with the ardor of a soul set +in its favorite way of all others. As David Hautville played his +great resonant viol he forgot all about his own perplexity and his +daughter's love-troubles; but she, listening as she worked, did not +forget.</p> + +<p>Madelon, swept around with these sweet waves of sounds, never once +had her memory of her own misery submerged. A strange double +consciousness she had, as she listened, of her senses and her soul. +All her nerves lapsed involuntarily into delight at the sounds they +loved, and all her soul wept above all melodies and harmonies in her +ears. The spirit of an artist had Madelon, and could, had she wished, +have made the songs she sung; and for that very reason music could +never carry her away from her own self.</p> + +<p>She finished her household tasks and sat down again to sew upon +her wedding-gown. After a while her father ceased playing, and leaned +his viol tenderly back in its corner, pulled on his great boots, put +on his leather jacket and his fur cap, lighted his pipe, shouldered +his gun, and set out with his eyes full of the abstraction of one who +follows alone a different path.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XVIII</h4> + +<p>Then Madelon sat alone, sewing, setting nice stitches in her +green-and-gold silk. Like other women, heretofore when she had sewn a +new gown she had builded for herself air-castles of innocent vanity +and love when she should be dressed in it. Now she builded no more, +but sat and sewed among the ruins of all her happy maiden fancies. +She had given herself no care concerning any other arrangements for +her wedding than this gown—she felt even no curiosity +concerning it. She left all that to Lot, as a victim leaves the +details of his death to the executioner. She supposed he would send +for her and tell her before long. When she heard a scraping step at +the door she knew instinctively that the message had come.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean's husband's simple old face confronted her when she +opened the door. The weather was moderating fast that morning. The +sun had the warmth of spring, and the old man stood in a shower of +rainbow drops from the melting icicles on the eaves. He handed her a +letter, backed clumsily and apologetically from under the drops, then +retreated carefully down the slippery path, his clumsy old joints +jolting.</p> + +<p>Madelon, back in the kitchen, stood for a second looking at the +letter. Then she opened it, and read the message written in Lot +Gordon's strange poetic style:</p> + +<p>“Madelon,—The rose waits in the garden for her lover, +because he has wings and she has none. But had the rose wings and her +lover none, then would she leave her garden and fly to him with her +honey in her heart, for love must be found. +<br> “Lot Gordon.”</p> + +<p>Enough strength of New England blood Madelon had to feel towards +Lot a new impulse of scorn that he should write her thus, instead of +bidding her come, simply, like a man, displaying his power over her +that they both knew.</p> + +<p>Small store of honey did she bear in her heart when she set out to +obey Lot's call. She hurried along, indeed, with her cloak flying out +at either side, like red wings in the south wind, but not from +eagerness to see her lover. She was in constant dread lest she meet +Burr on the road; but she gained Lot's house without seeing him or +knowing that his miserable, jealous eyes watched her from an opposite +window.</p> + +<p>Burr was up in his chamber when Madelon went into his cousin's +house. Presently he went down-stairs, where his mother was, with a +face so full of the helpless appeal of agony that she looked at him +as she used to do when he came in hurt from play.</p> + +<p>“What is the matter, Burr, are you sick?” she said, in +her quiet voice. She was sitting in a rocking-chair in the sun with +her knitting-work. She swayed on gently as she spoke, and her long, +delicate fingers still slipped the yarn over the needle.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am sick, mother; I am sick to death,” Burr +groaned out. Then he went down on the floor at his mother's feet, and +hid his face in her lap, as he had used to do when he was a child in +trouble. Mrs. Gordon's stern repose of manner had never seemed to +repel any demonstration of her son's. Now she continued to knit above +his head, but he apparently felt no lack of sympathy in her.</p> + +<p>She asked no more questions, but waited for him to speak. +“She's just gone in there,” he half sobbed out, +presently. “Oh, mother, what shall I do—what shall I +do?”</p> + +<p>“You'll have to get used to it,” said his mother. +“You'll have to make up your mind to it, Burr.”</p> + +<p>“Mother, I can't! Oh, God, I can't see her every day there +with him. Mother, we've got to sell out and move away. You'll be +willing to, won't you? Won't you, mother?”</p> + +<p>“You forget Dorothy. She can't leave the town where her +father is.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I could forget Dorothy in honor!” Burr cried +out.</p> + +<p>“You can't,” said his mother, “and there's an +end of it.”</p> + +<p>“I know it,” said Burr. He got up and stood looking +moodily out of the window.</p> + +<p>“You know,” said his mother, still knitting, +“how I have felt from the very first about Madelon Hautville. I +never approved of her for a wife for you; I approve of her still less +now, after her violent conduct and her consent to marry Lot, whom she +cannot care for. Still, since you feel as you do about it, I should +be glad to have you marry her, if such a thing could be done with any +show of honor; but it cannot. You know that as well as I. You must +marry Dorothy Fair, and Madelon is going to marry Lot. Leaving +everything else out of the question, it is out of your power to say +anything on account of the money which you will lose by her marriage +with him. You know what she might think.”</p> + +<p>“Curse the money!” Burr cried out. “Curse the +money and the position and all the damned lot of bubbles that come +between a man and what's worth more, and will last!”</p> + +<p>“Burr, don't talk so!”</p> + +<p>“I can't help it, mother. I mean it. Curse it, I say, and +the infernal weakness that makes a man see double on women's faces +when there's only one woman in his heart! Mother, why didn't you know +about that last, so you could tell me when I was a boy?”</p> + +<p>His mother colored a little. “I never taught you to be +fickle,” she said, with a kind of shamed bewilderment.</p> + +<p>“I never have been fickle. This is something else +worse.” Burr looked at his mother again, with the old +expression of his when he had come in hurt from play. No matter how +long Burr Gordon might live, no matter what brave deeds he might +do—and there was brave stuff in him, for he would have gone to +the gallows rather than betray Madelon—there would always be in +him the appeal of a child to the woman who loved him. “Mother, +I don't know how to bear it,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You must bear it like a man.”</p> + +<p>“It is hard to bear the consequence of unmanly conduct like +a man,” said Burr, shortly; then he went out, as if the old +comfort from his mother had failed him. As for her, she finished +heeling her stocking, and then went out into the kitchen and made a +pudding that her son loved for his dinner.</p> + +<p>Burr went back up-stairs to his cold chamber, and watched for +Madelon to come out of Lot's house. It seemed to him she was there an +eternity, but in reality it was only a half-hour.</p> + +<p>She had found Lot sitting as usual before the fire with a +leather-covered volume on his knees. “I have come,” she +said, standing just inside the door; then she started at the look he +gave her. There was a significance in it which she could not +understand.</p> + +<p>He did not say a word for full five minutes while she waited. He +did not even ask her to be seated. “Do you know the +date?” he asked then, harshly. There was no hint of roses and +honey in his speech and manner to offend her like his letter.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do.”</p> + +<p>“You know the month is up on Monday?”</p> + +<p>“I am not likely to forget.”</p> + +<p>“True,” said Lot; “it is the last thing a girl +will forget—the day set for her happy marriage.” He +laughed.</p> + +<p>Madelon's face contracted. She set her mouth harder, and looked +straight at Lot. “When you have done laughing,” said she, +“will you tell me what you want of me? I have to go home and +get dinner.”</p> + +<p>Lot still looked at her with his mocking smile. “I wished to +inquire if you are ready to become my bride on Monday,” said +he.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am ready. Is that all?”</p> + +<p>“I wished also to inquire if you have any plans concerning +the ceremony which you would like carried out.”</p> + +<p>“I have none.”</p> + +<p>“Then will it suit you to come here on Monday at two o'clock +in the afternoon, since the doctor tells me I shall scarcely be able +to go out myself, and be united to me by Parson Fair?”</p> + +<p>“I am ready to carry out any plans you may make.”</p> + +<p>“Your father and your brothers and my cousin Burr and his +mother will, of course, be present at our wedding,” said Lot, +with wary eyes upon her face.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him as proudly as ever. “Very well,” +said she. She waited a minute longer; then she laid her hand on the +doorlatch.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute!” Lot cried. He looked at her +hesitatingly. A flush crept over his white face. +“Madelon,” he began; then his cough interrupted him. He +tried to force it back with fierce swallowings, but had to yield. He +bent over double, and shook with rattling volleys. Madelon waited, +her eyes averted, without a sign of pity. The near approach of her +wedding-day caused a revolt of her whole maiden soul towards him so +intense that it was as a contraction of the muscles. She was utterly +hard to his suffering. At last he raised himself, panting, and cast a +pale look around at her.</p> + +<p>“Well, what do you want?” she said.</p> + +<p>He motioned feebly towards is desk on the other side of the room. +“Top drawer,” he whispered, hoarsely; “left-hand +corner—find—leather case—bring to me.”</p> + +<p>Madelon crossed the room to the desk, opened the drawer, found the +leather case, and carried it to Lot. “Here,” said +she.</p> + +<p>“Open it,” Lot whispered.</p> + +<p>Madelon pressed the spring in the case, and held it out open +towards Lot without a glance at its contents.</p> + +<p>“Look,” he said.</p> + +<p>Madelon glanced at the little gold watch, curled round with a long +gold chain, which the case contained, and continued to hold it out +towards Lot. “I've looked,” said she. “Here, take +it; I must go home.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, it's for you.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want it.”</p> + +<p>“Take it—Madelon, won't you have it? I got it for +you.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don't want it. Shall I put it back in the +drawer?”</p> + +<p>“Don't you think it's a pretty watch?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Shall I put it back?”</p> + +<p>“You haven't any watch, Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“I don't want one.” Madelon closed the case +impatiently, and turned away.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, won't you take it?” Lot begged, +piteously.</p> + +<p>“I told you no—I do not care for it.” Madelon +put the case back in the desk drawer. Then she drew her cloak +together, and went to the door again.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Lot Gordon, weakly, in his hoarse voice, +“the hardest thing in the whole world for Love to bruise +himself against is the tender heart of a woman, when 'tis not +inclined his way.”</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” said Madelon, and shut the door behind her +fiercely. That last speech of Lot's, which, like many of his +speeches, seemed to her no human vernacular, added terror to her +aversion of him. “He's more like a book than a man,” she +had often thought, and the fancy seized her now that the great +leather-bound book upon his knees, and all those leather-bound books +against his walls, had somehow possessed him with an uncanny life of +their own.</p> + +<p>And she may have been in a measure right, for Lot Gordon, during +his whole life, had dealt indirectly with human hearts through their +translations in his beloved books rather than with the beating hearts +of men and women around him. Still, although he spoke like one who +learns a language from books instead of the familiar converse of +people, and his thoughts clothed themselves in images which those +about him disdained and threw off as impeding their hard race of +life, poor Lot Gordon's heart beat in time with the hearts of his +kind. But that Madelon could not know because hers was so set against +it.</p> + +<p>She hurried out of the house and the yard, dreading again lest she +should encounter Burr. But her haste was of no avail, for he came +straight down his opposite terraces, and met her when she reached the +road.</p> + +<p>She would have pushed past then, but he stood squarely before her. +“Madelon, can't I speak with you a minute?” he pleaded. +Madelon saw, without seeming to look, that Burr's handsome face was +white as death and haggard.</p> + +<p>“Are you sick?” she asked, suddenly. “Why do you +look so? What is the matter with you?” and she put a +half-bitter, half-anxiously compassionate weight upon the +<em>you</em>.</p> + +<p>“I believe I am going mad,” Burr groaned, with the +quick grasp of a man at the pity of the woman he loves. “Oh, +Madelon!” He held out his hands towards her like a child, but +she stood back from him, and looked straight at him with sharp +questioning in her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean—” she began; then stopped, and +questioned him with her eyes again. She was seized with the belief, +which filled her at once with agony and an impulse of fierce +protection like that of a mother defending her young with her own +wounded bosom, that Burr had had a falling out with Dorothy.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon!” Burr said again, and then he could say +no more for very shame and honor. He had run out, indeed, in a +half-frenzy.</p> + +<p>“She <em>shall</em> not play you false!” Madelon cried +out. “Dorothy Fair <em>shall</em> keep her word with +you.”</p> + +<p>Burr looked at her, bewildered.</p> + +<p>“Marry her at once,” Madelon cried, with a quick rush +of her words—“at once. Do you hear me, Burr Gordon? It's +all the way to do with a girl like that. Do you hear me?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I hear you,” Burr said, slowly, as if he were +stunned.</p> + +<p>“Dorothy Fair <em>shall</em> keep her promise to you—I +will make her. She shall marry you whenever you say. I will go this +very day and see her.”</p> + +<p>“There is no need for you to do that, Madelon. I will marry +her at once, as you advise. I think she will be willing,” Burr +said, slowly and coldly. Then he left her without another word, and +went up his terraces with his back bent like an old man's. He was +holding hard to his heart the surety that Madelon no longer cared for +him, for it is scarcely within the imagination of either man or woman +that one can love and yet give away. But by the time he entered the +house his spirit had awakened within him, and he made a proud resolve +that since Madelon so advised and was herself to marry that he would +marry Dorothy Fair as soon as she should be willing.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XIX</h4> + +<p>As for Madelon, she went home with her mind diverted from her own +unhappiness by Burr's, and, in spite of his assurance, might have +gone to visit her righteous anger upon Dorothy had she not heard that +very night that Burr and Parson Fair's daughter were to be married in +a month's time.</p> + +<p>The next day Lot sent again for her, and she obeyed, with her +proud sense of duty to her future husband, although every step she +took towards him carried her farther away. His conduct began to +puzzle her more than ever. Again he sent her to the desk drawer, and +this time for a roll of precious rose-colored satin stuff, fit for a +queen's gown; but she would have none of that either, although he +pleaded with her to take it. When she started to go away he called +her back, and called her back, and when she came had nothing to say, +until she lost patience and went home.</p> + +<p>And the day after that he sent again, and there was a great carved +comb for her in the desk drawer, and some rose-colored satin shoes; +but she thrust them back indignantly. “Understand once for all, +Lot Gordon,” said she, “you I will take, as I would take +my death, because I have pledged my word; but your presents I will +not take.”</p> + +<p>“I have been buying them and treasuring them, against the +time you would have them, for years,” pleaded Lot.</p> + +<p>“I tell you I will not have them,” said she.</p> + +<p>That day, as the day before, he called her back again and again, +and looked at her as if he had something on his mind which he would +and could not say; and she went home at last resolved not to go again +until she was obliged to for the marriage ceremony.</p> + +<p>The next day was Sunday, and Madelon went to meeting and sang, as +usual. Burr was not there, but pretty Dorothy was, and looked up at +Madelon with a kind of wondering alarm when she sang. Madelon had the +heart of one who sings her death-song, and there was something of it +in her face that morning. Unconsciously people looked past her, when +her voice rang out, to see some dead wall of horror at her back to +account for the strange tones in it and the look in her face. She had +never looked handsomer, however, than she did that day. Her cheeks +had the bloom of roses, and her black eyes seemed to give out their +own light, like stars.</p> + +<p>She held up her head like a queen as she sang, and her wonderful +voice sounded through and beyond the viols and violins, and all the +other singing voices. The agony within her was great to penetrate the +consciousness of others through this fair triumphant mask.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked better than her rival that morning. Dorothy sat, as +usual, daintily clad in her Sabbath silks and swan's-downs, with a +sweet atmosphere as of a flower around her; but her delicate color +had faded, and her blue eyes looked as if she had been weeping and +had not slept. She never glanced once at Eugene Hautville up in the +singing-seats; but sometimes he looked at her, and then her face +quivered under his eyes.</p> + +<p>That noon Lot Gordon sent again for Madelon, but this time she +refused to go. “Tell him I am busy and can't come,” she +told Margaret Bean's husband, who had brought the note. The old man +went off, muttering over her message to himself lest he forget it. +She heard him repeating it in a childish sing-song—“Tell +him I'm busy and can't come; tell him I'm busy and can't +come”—as he went out of the yard, slanting his old body +before the south wind. The wind blew from the south that day in great +gusts as warm as summer; the air was full of the sounds of running +water, of sweet, interrupted tinkles and sudden gurgles and steady +outpourings as from a thousand pitchers. The snow was going fast; +here and there were bare patches that showed a green shimmer across +the wind. Sometimes spring comes with a rush to New England on the +1st of April.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Madelon went to meeting and sang again, and when +she got home Margaret Bean was waiting for her, sitting, a +motionless, swaddled figure, beside a window. The Hautvilles never +locked their doors while away from home, and she had walked in and +waited at her ease until Madelon should return.</p> + +<p>Madelon came in alone; her father, Abner, and Eugene had stopped +in the barn to look after the roan, who had gone somewhat lame in one +foot, and Louis and Richard had lagged. Margaret Bean stood up when +Madelon entered.</p> + +<p>“You'd better come over,” said she.</p> + +<p>“Didn't I tell your husband I couldn't?” returned +Madelon, harshly.</p> + +<p>“You'd better, I guess.”</p> + +<p>“I've got my father's and brothers' supper to get, and other +things to see to. Tell him he must leave me in peace to-day, or I'll +never come.” Madelon's voice rose high and strident. She +unfastened her cloak as if it choked her. Margaret looked at her, her +small black eyes peering out wrathfully from her swathing woollens. +She was as much wrapped up on this mild day as she had been when the +cold was intense. A certain dogged attitude towards the weather +Margaret Bean always took. On Thanksgiving Day she donned her winter +garments; on May Day she exchanged them for her summer ones, +regardless of the temperature. She never made any compromises or +concessions. She sweltered in her full regalia of wools on mild +spring days; she weathered the early November blasts in her straw +bonnet and silk shawl, without an extra kerchief around her stiff old +neck. To-day she would not loosen her wraps as she sat waiting for +Madelon in the warm room, but remained all securely pinned and tied +as when she entered.</p> + +<p>However, her discomfort, although she would not yield to it, +aroused her temper. “You'd better come,” said she, +“or you'll be sorry.”</p> + +<p>Madelon made no reply.</p> + +<p>“He's sick,” said Margaret Bean; “he's took +considerable worse.” She nodded her head angrily at +Madelon.</p> + +<p>“Is his cough worse?”</p> + +<p>“He can scarcely sit up,” said Margaret Bean, with +severe emphasis. She rose up stiffly, as if she had but one joint, so +girt about was she. “If a woman's going to marry a man, I +calculate it's her place to go to him when he's sick and wants +her,” she added.</p> + +<p>“Is his cough worse?”</p> + +<p>“Ain't his cough bad all the time? Well, I'm going. If folks +'ain't got any feelings, they 'ain't. I've got to make some porridge +for him.”</p> + +<p>Madelon opened the door for her. “I'll come over after +supper,” said she; “you can tell him so.”</p> + +<p>After supper Madelon went over to Lot's in the early twilight. The +tinkles and gurgles and plashes of water came mysteriously from all +sides through the dusk. The hill-sides were flowing with shallow +cascades, and the woods were threaded with brooks. The wind blew +strongly as ever from the south; it had lost the warmth of the sun, +but was still soft. The earth was full of a strange commotion and +stir—of disorder changing into order, as if creation had come +again. It might have been the very birthnight of the spring. Madelon, +as she hurried along, felt that memory of old, joyous anticipation +which enhances melancholy when the chance of realization is over. The +spring might come, radiant as ever, with its fulfilment of love for +flowers and birds and all living things, but the spring would never +come in its full meaning, with its old prophecies, for her again.</p> + +<p>Just before she reached Lot's home, Burr passed her swiftly with a +muttered “good-evening.” He was on his way to Dorothy +Fair's.</p> + +<p>“Good-evening,” Madelon returned, quite clearly.</p> + +<p>She found Lot sitting up, but she could see that he looked worse +than usual. He was paler, and there was an odd, nervous contraction +about his whole face, as if a frown of anxiety and perplexity had +extended.</p> + +<p>He held out his hand, but she took no notice of it.</p> + +<p>“I have come,” said she; “what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Won't you shake hands, Madelon?”</p> + +<p>Madelon held out her hand, with her face averted, but Lot did not +take it, after all.</p> + +<p>“My hand is too cold,” he muttered; “never +mind—” He continued to look at her, and the anxious +lines on his face deepened.</p> + +<p>“Are you feeling worse than usual?” Madelon asked; and +a little kindness came into her voice, for Lot Gordon looked again +like a sick child who had lost his way in the world.</p> + +<p>Lot shook his head, with his wistful eyes still upon her face. A +little light-stand, with his medicines and a candle, stood on his +left. Presently he reached out and took a little box from off it, and +extended it to Madelon. She shrank back.</p> + +<p>“Take it, Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don't want it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, take it and open it at least, and let me see +you.”</p> + +<p>Madelon took the box, with an impatient gesture, and opened it, +and a ring set with a great pearl gleamed on its red velvet cushion. +She closed the box and held it out towards Lot. “I want no +presents, Lot,” she said, but almost gently.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Madelon, keep it!”</p> + +<p>She reached across him, and laid the little box back on the +table.</p> + +<p>“There's another ring I've got for you you'll have to wear, +Madelon.”</p> + +<p>“I will wear what I must, for the sake of my promise, when +the time comes, but that is all I will do,” returned Madelon; +and she seemed to feel, as she spoke, the wedding-ring close around +her finger like a snake.</p> + +<p>“Can nothing I can give you please you, Madelon?”</p> + +<p>“No, Lot,” she said, but not ungently. She began to +move away.</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>“Well?” Madelon waited, but Lot said not another +word. She went on towards the door.</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” he whispered, and she stopped again; but +this time also there was a long silence, which he did not break.</p> + +<p>Madelon opened the door, and his piteous cry came for the third +time, and she waited on the threshold; but again he said nothing +more.</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” said she, shortly, and was out, and the +door shut. Then she heard a cry from him, as if he were dying. +“Madelon, Madelon!”</p> + +<p>She opened the door with a jerk, and went back. “Lot,” +said she, sternly, “this is the last time I will come back. +Once for all, what is it you want of me?”</p> + +<p>Lot looked up at her, his face working. He strove to speak and +could not. He strove again, and his voice was weak and gasping as if +the breath of life had almost left him. “We—had better +not be married—to-morrow,” he said, with his piteous eyes +upon Madelon's face.</p> + +<p>She started, and stared at him as if she feared she did not hear +rightly.</p> + +<p>“I—have been—thinking it over,” Lot went +on, panting; “I am not as well—we had better +wait—until—May. My cough—the doctor—we will +wait—Madelon!” Lot's broken speech ended in a pitiful +cry of her name.</p> + +<p>“Why do you do this?” she asked, looking at him with +her white, stern face, through which an expression of joy, which she +tried to keep back, was struggling.</p> + +<p>“I am not as well, Madelon,” Lot answered, with sudden +readiness and sad dignity. “If you do not object to the change +of time we had best defer it.”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked away. “There is no need of any pretence +between us,” she said; “I am sorry you are not as +well.”</p> + +<p>“But not sorry that our wedded bliss must be +deferred?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said she. Then she went away, and that time Lot +did not call her back. She heard him coughing hard as she went +through the entry.</p> + +<p>When she came out of the house into the tumultuous darkness of the +spring night, and went down the road with the south wind smiting her +with broadsides of soft air, and the living sounds of water ahead and +on either hand of her, she was happy—in spite of Burr, in spite +of everything—with the happiness of one to whom is granted a +respite from death.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XX</h4> + +<p>When the mind has been strained up and held to the furthering of +some painful end and then suddenly released, it sinks back for a +time, alive to nothing but the consciousness of freedom and rest. +Even the thought for the future, which is its one weapon against +fate, is laid down. Madelon, for a few days after the postponement of +her marriage, went about in a kind of negative happiness. There are +few who have so much to bear that there is not left to them at least +the joy of escape from another trial. Madelon had lost her lover +indeed, but she was let loose for a while from a worse trouble than +that.</p> + +<p>When Madelon entered the house that Sunday night her face was so +changed that it held her father's and her brothers' casual glances. +Her cheeks were brilliant with the damp wind, her eyes gleaming, her +mouth half smiling as she looked around. For the first time for weeks +it seemed to Madelon that she had really come home, and the old +familiar place did not look strange to her with the threatening light +of her own future over it. She tossed off her hood and her red cloak, +and proposed with her old manner that they have some music.</p> + +<p>The men looked at her and each other. “She's a woman,” +old David muttered under his mustache, and got his viol.</p> + +<p>Soon the grand chorus began, and Madelon sang and sang, with all +her old fervor. The brothers kept glancing at her, half uneasily, but +David wooed his viol as if it were his one love in the world, and +paid no attention to aught besides.</p> + +<p>The concert lasted late that night. It was midnight before they +stopped singing and put their stringed instruments away.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon turned to them all. “I am not going to be +married to-morrow,” she said, and her face flushed red. +“I had better tell you. I am not going to be married for a +month.” She strove to control her voice, but in spite of +herself it rang exultantly at the last.</p> + +<p>Louis and Richard exchanged one look with a sudden turn of white +faces. David stared hard and perplexedly at his daughter. +“What's that ye say?” he asked, after a second's +pause.</p> + +<p>“I am not going to be married for another month.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Lot isn't as well as he was.”</p> + +<p>“What's the matter? That cut he got?”</p> + +<p>“No, I guess not. I think it's his cough.” Madelon +paled and shivered, and turned away as she spoke, for the horror of +her deed and the forced pity came over her again.</p> + +<p>Her father caught her by the arm as she would have gone out of the +room.</p> + +<p>“Look ye here,” he said, “is this the whole +truth of it? We've got a right to know. Be ye going to marry him in a +month's time?”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him proudly. “I am going to marry him in a +month's time, and I am not afraid to face all the truth in the world. +Let me go, father.”</p> + +<p>When she was gone the father and sons stood staring at one +another. There was on all their faces an under meaning to which not +one would give tongue.</p> + +<p>Richard jostled Louis's shoulder. “Suppose—” he +whispered, looking at him with dismayed and suspicious eyes.</p> + +<p>“Hush up!” returned Louis, roughly, and swung across +to the shelf for his candle.</p> + +<p>“If I thought—” began David, with force; then +stopped, shaking his old head. The male Hautvilles went out, one +after the other, their candles flaring up in their grimly silent +faces. They were capable of concerted action without speech, and had +evolved one purpose of going to bed with no more parley about Lot +Gordon and Madelon that night. Brave as these men were, not one of +them dared set foot squarely upon the dangerous ground which two of +them knew, and three suspected, and look another in the face with the +consciousness of his whereabouts in his eyes.</p> + +<p>Truly afraid were they all, with that subtle cowardice which lurks +sometimes in the bravest souls, of one another's knowledge and +suspicions, as they filed up the creaking wooden stairs.</p> + +<p>Richard looked at Louis in a terrified sidelong way when they were +safe in their room with the door shut. “Hush up!” Louis +whispered again, roughly, as if Richard had spoken. The two brothers +were not to sleep much that night, each being tormented by anxiety +lest Lot Gordon had resolved to stand by their sister no longer, and +let disgrace fall upon her head; but neither would speak.</p> + +<p>The candles flashed athwart the dark window-spaces of the +Hautville chambers, and one by one went out. The house was dark and +still, with all the sweet voices and stringed instruments at rest. +Yet so full of sonorous harmony had it been not long since that one +might well fancy that it would still, to an attentive ear, +reverberate with sweet sounds in all its hollows, like a shell.</p> + +<p>Madelon slept soundly that night, and when she woke on the morning +of what was to have been her wedding-day felt as if she had a glimpse +of her own self again, after a long dream in which she had been +changed and lost. Richard went early to tell the woman who had been +engaged to do the housework that she need not come for a month. After +breakfast her father and brothers all went away, and she was alone in +the house. She went about her work singing for the first time for +weeks. She raised her voice high in a gay ditty which was then in +vogue, entitled “The Knight Errant”:</p> + +<p> “It was Dennis the young and brave +<br> Was bound for Palestine; +<br> But first he made his orisons +<br> Before Saint Mary's shrine.</p> + +<p> “‘And grant, immortal Queen of +Heaven,’ <br> Was still the soldier's +prayer, <br> ‘That I may prove the bravest knight +<br> And love the fairest +fair.’”</p> + +<p>So sang Madelon, loud and sweet, as she tidied the kitchen. There +were four verses, and she was on the last when the door opened +stealthily and her granduncle, old Luke Basset, entered. Her back was +towards him, and she did not see or hear him.</p> + +<p>He waited, his old face fixed in a sly grin, standing unsteadily +on his shaking old legs, and holding to the back of a chair for +support, until Madelon sang at the close of the song,</p> + +<p> “And honored be the bravest brave, +<br> Beloved the fairest fair,”</p> + +<p>and stopped. Then he spoke. “'Tain't so, then, I +s'pose,” said he, and his voice seemed to crack with sly +suggestiveness.</p> + +<p>Madelon faced around on him. “What isn't so?” she +asked, coldly. “I didn't hear you come in.”</p> + +<p>Old Luke Basset shuffled stiffly to the hearth and settled into +David's chair. “Well,” said he, “I heerd in the +store just now that your weddin' was put off, but I s'pose it ain't +so, 'cause you seem to be in sech good sperits. A gal wouldn't be +singin' if her weddin' was put off.”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Uncle Luke,” said Madelon.</p> + +<p>“Well?”</p> + +<p>“My wedding is put off for a month; now that settles it. I +don't want to say another word about it.” Madelon went into +the pantry.</p> + +<p>Luke sent his old voice, shrill and penetrating as a baby's, after +her. “They say 'tain't luck to have a weddin' put off. 'Ain't +ye afeard he'll give ye the slip?”</p> + +<p>Madelon made no reply. There was a rattle of dishes in the +pantry.</p> + +<p>Old Luke waited a moment; then raised his shrill, infantile voice +again. “If this feller gives ye the slip, ye can jest hang up +yer fiddle; ye won't git t'other one back. Parson Fair's gal's got +'nough fine feathers comin' from Boston to fit out the Queen of +England, they say.”</p> + +<p>Madelon said nothing.</p> + +<p>“D'ye hear?” called old Luke; but he got no reply. +“Dexter Beers says a hull passel of stuff come up from Boston +on the stage yesterday. Saturday,” persisted old Luke, +“Mis' Beers she see an eend of blue satin a-stickin' out of one +of the bundles.”</p> + +<p>Old Luke waited again, with sharp eyes on the pantry. He could see +therein a fold of Madelon's indigo-blue petticoat, and could hear the +click of a spoon against a dish; that was all.</p> + +<p>Old Luke tried his last prod of aggravation. “Folks air +sayin' down to the store that mebbe there was some truth, arter all, +in what you said 'bout the stabbin', an' mebbe that's the reason Lot +is a puttin' off the weddin',” piped old Luke. He chuckled +slyly to himself, but sobered suddenly, and cowered in his chair +before Madelon.</p> + +<p>She came out of the pantry with a rush, and stood before him, her +eyes blazing. “There <em>was</em> truth in what I said, after +all!” she cried. “The truth's the truth, whether there's +folks to believe it or not, and I spoke it, and you can tell them so +at the store.”</p> + +<p>Old Luke shrank before her. His old body seemed to cease to shape +his clothes. He looked up at her with scared eyes.</p> + +<p>“And the reason I have told for the wedding being postponed +is the truth, too,” continued Madelon. “I did stab Lot +Gordon, and he knows I did, though he won't own it, and he's bound to +stab me back my whole life. And we shall be married in a month fast +enough—you needn't worry, Uncle Luke Basset.”</p> + +<p>Madelon stood over the old man a minute, quivering with impatience +and utterly reckless anger and scorn, and he shrank before her with +scared eyes, and yet a lurking of his malicious grin about his mouth. +Then she made a contemptuous gesture, as if she would brush him out +of her consciousness altogether, and went away out of the room +without another word, and left him alone.</p> + +<p>He turned his head slowly and looked cautiously around after the +door was closed. He heard Madelon's quick tread up the stairs. +“Gorry!” muttered old Luke under his breath, and scowled +reflectively over his foxy eyes. Quite convinced in his own mind was +old Luke Basset that his grandniece had spoken the truth, and had +wounded Lot Gordon almost to death, and quite resolute was he also +that he would, since she was his own kin, contend against the carping +tongues of the village gossips with all the cunning in him.</p> + +<p>Old Luke waited for some time. Then he got up stiffly and shuffled +out on his tottering legs, scraping his feet for purchase on the +floor, like some old claw-footed animal.</p> + +<p>Out in the entry he paused a moment, with his head cocked shrewdly +and warily towards the stairs. “Hey!” he called, but got +no response. He opened the outer door, and, all ready to be gone +should his niece appear, he called shrilly up the stairs, “Hey, +Mad'lon—forgot to tell ye. Mis' Beers she said she see a +bandbox 'mongst them things that come for the parson's gal; said +'twas most big 'nough to hold the bride, and she guessed 'twas the +weddin'-bunnit.”</p> + +<p>Not a sound from above heard old Luke, and presently he gave it up +and went out and down the road to the village, with occasional +glances of a crafty old eye over his shoulder at Madelon's chamber +window. Madelon had heard every word. She was folding up her own +wedding-silk and putting it away in the cedar chest until she should +want it. She put away her wedding-bonnet also, with its cream-colored +plumes and its linings and strings of yellow satin, in the +bandbox.</p> + +<p>She set her mouth hard, and coupled bitterly her own poor +wedding-finery with Dorothy Fair's grand outfit; and yet not for the +reason that her Uncle Luke had striven to give her, for she would +have held an old ragged blanket of one of her Indian grandmothers +like the bridal gown of a queen had Burr been her bridegroom.</p> + +<p>Madelon heard the door shut, and knew her tormentor was gone; and +after her fine attire was packed away she went down-stairs and about +her tasks again. But she sang no more. The certainty of the future +overcame her like the present, and her short-lived joy or respite was +all gone. When her father and brothers came home at noon they found +the old stern quiet in her face, and their suspicions that there had +been a rupture with Lot ceased. They were relieved, but the boy +Richard eyed her with furtive pity. That night he lingered behind the +others when they dispersed for the night, and went up to Madelon and +threw an arm around her, and laid his cheek against hers. “Oh, +Madelon, I wish—” he began, and then he caught his +breath, and his cheek against hers was wet, and Madelon turned and +comforted him, as a woman will turn and comfort a man for even his +pity for her sorrow.</p> + +<p>“There is no need for you to fret,” she said, with a +sort of gentle authority, as if she had been his mother. “I've +got my life to live, and I've got strength enough to live it. I shall +do well enough.”</p> + +<p>Then she put him away from her softly, and went about setting +bread to rise. But he followed beseechingly at her heels, with a +little parcel which he had been hiding in a corner of the dresser. +“I bought these for you, with some of my trap money, for a +little present,” the boy whispered, piteously; and Madelon +smiled at him and took the parcel and opened it, and found therein a +pair of fine red-satin shoes. Then he brightened at the delight which +she showed, and went up-stairs to bed, feeling that after all it +would be no such hard task for his sister to marry Lot Gordon, and +cover her fault of mad temper and her disgrace. “He likes her +so much he will treat her kindly, and she will have a fine house, and +plenty of silk gowns, and feathers in her bonnets,” reflected +Richard, comfortably, with no more consciousness of his sister's +outlook upon life than if his eyes were turned towards a scene in +another world. Still he loved his sister with all his heart, although +he never in his life had seen anything just as she saw it. He did not +dream that Madelon's calm broke before his red-satin shoes, and that +she was sitting alone before the kitchen fire with them in her lap, +weeping bitterly. She was made of stern stuff to endure the worst of +things; but, after all, the pitiful little accessories of grief and +death are harder to bear without weakening, because all one's powers +of defence are not enlisted against them. They are sometimes the +scouts that kill.</p> + +<p>Poor Madelon looked at her brother's wedding-gift, the little +red-satin shoes, in which she could never walk or dance with a merry +heart, and her courage almost failed her. But it was only for a +little while. She rose up and finished setting the bread to rise, and +then she went to her chamber and packed away the shoes with the other +things in the cedar chest.</p> + +<p>Through the days that came now Madelon toiled as she had never +toiled before, although she had always been an industrious girl. She +had her own linen-chest, which she would take with her when she +married, and now she bestirred herself to replenish the stores of the +house she would leave, for the comfort of her father and brothers. +Long before dawn the gentle hum of her spinning-wheel began, although +the days were lengthening, and many a time she sat plying it on her +solitary hearth until after midnight. She spent days at the great +loom in the north chamber, marching back and forth before it, a +straight, resolute figure of industry filling human needs, although +with sweat of the brow and heart's blood. No happier was she for her +hard toil, but it kept at least the spirit of fierce endurance alive +within her, for no one succumbs entirely to misery with unfolded +hands. Then, too, she was upheld somewhat by her pride in right-doing +and providing for the interests of her family. Enough of the New +England conscience she had to give her a certain comfort in holding +herself to duty, like a knife to a grindstone.</p> + +<p>The third week of April had begun when one morning Dorothy Fair +came to the door. Madelon was out in the field beside the house, +laying some lengths of cloth on the green sunny levels to whiten. The +grass had turned quite green in places, and the sun was hot as +midsummer. The buds on the trees opened before one's eyes, as if +unfolded by warm fingers. People walked languidly, for the humid heat +served to force nothing to life in them but dreams; but the birds +lived on their wings and called out of all the distances.</p> + +<p>Madelon, standing up from spreading her linen, caught sight of the +swing of a blue petticoat, like the swing of a blue flower, beside +the house door, and went towards it directly.</p> + +<p>But when she reached the house the blue-clad visitor had +disappeared within. Madelon entered and found Dorothy Fair in the +north parlor. Eugene had been sitting in there with his Shakespeare +book, and he had opened the door, bowing and wishing her good-day, +with his courtly grace of manner, although his handsome face was +pale.</p> + +<p>Dorothy was pale, also, under her blue-ribboned bonnet. She +courtesied on trembling knees, and spoke like a scared child, in +spite of her training and genteel deportment. “Can I see your +sister?” she said, in a half-whisper, and she did not raise her +blue eyes to Eugene's face.</p> + +<p>Eugene looked past her. “I see her coming now across the +field,” he said; “she has seen you and will be here +presently.”</p> + +<p>Then he bade her enter, and made way for her, like a courtier for +a princess, and seated her in the north parlor in the best +rocking-chair, as if it were a throne. Then he sat down opposite her, +with his Shakespeare book still on his knees. That morning he had +been poring over “Romeo and Juliet.” His imagination was +afire with the sweet ardor of that other lover, and he would gladly +have identified Dorothy, as she sat there, with Juliet; and so he +adored her doubly.</p> + +<p>Yet he saw only the tip of her little shoe below the blue hem of +her gown, and dared not fairly glance at her face, although he bore +himself with such calm ease that none could have suspected.</p> + +<p>“It is a beautiful day,” said Eugene.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” whispered Dorothy. Somehow for the moment +Eugene forgot Dorothy's marriage, and Burr and his bitter jealousy, +for suddenly a strange and unwarrantable sense of possession came +over him. He looked fully at Dorothy, and scanned her drooping face, +and smiled, and then Madelon came in.</p> + +<p>Dorothy arose at once and greeted her with more of her usual +manner. Then she fumbled uneasily with a little parcel she held, and +glanced at Eugene, and then at Madelon. “I had an +errand—” began Dorothy and stopped, and then Eugene said +softly, still smiling, “I see you have some weighty matter to +discuss,” and bowed himself out with his Shakespeare book.</p> + +<p>Then Dorothy, all trembling, and before he was fairly out of +hearing across the entry in the other room, announced her errand. She +had come to beg Madelon, whose rare skill in embroidering her own +floral designs was celebrated in the village, to work for her the +front breadth of one of her silken gowns with a garland of red roses. +“I can work only from patterns which are marked out,” +said Dorothy; and then she held up a shining length of green silk +upon which the garland already bloomed in her pretty feminine fancy. +“I will pay you whatever you ask,” said Dorothy, further. +Then she started and shrank, for Madelon looked at her with such +wrath and pride in her black eyes that she was frightened.</p> + +<p>“What—have—I—done?” she faltered, +piteously. And it was quite true that she did not know what she had +done, for she reasoned always like a child, with premises of acts +only and not of motives. She considered simply that Madelon had urged +her to be true to Burr, and was herself to marry another man, and +therefore could not be jealous, and that she wanted her gown +embroidered.</p> + +<p>Dorothy was not happy, and a nervous terror was always upon her +which had caused her blue eyes to look out wistfully from delicate +hollows and faded the soft pink on her cheeks; still she kept +involuntarily to her feminine ways, and wanted her gowns +embroidered.</p> + +<p>“I want no pay!” Madelon cried, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>“I meant no harm,” Dorothy faltered, again. She +remembered that Madelon Hautville had on divers occasions, for +prospective brides, turned her marvellous skill in embroidery to +financial profit, but she dared not say so for an excuse. “I +could not do it myself,” Dorothy said, further, trembling in +every limb, “and—I thought +maybe—you—”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Madelon extended her hand. “Give me this +silk,” she said; “I will work the flowers on it for you, +but never dare to speak to me of pay, Dorothy Fair.”</p> + +<p>Dorothy looked at her, made a motion as to give her the silk, then +drew it back again.</p> + +<p>“Give me the silk,” said Madelon. Dorothy yielded up +the silk hesitatingly, with a scared and apologetic murmur. Then she +screamed faintly, for Eugene Hautville strode back into the room with +a look on his face which she had never seen before. He snatched the +silk out of Madelon's hand and thrust it roughly into Dorothy's.</p> + +<p>“Take it home,” he said. “My sister does no work +on your wedding-clothes!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy gasped and looked at him with wild terror in her blue +eyes, and then he caught her in his arms, pressed her yellow head +against his breast, and stroked it softly. “Don't be +afraid,” he said—and his voice had its wonderful gentle +charm again. “Don't be afraid, dear child! I could not harm you +if I tried—not a hard word shall be said to you, +sweet!”</p> + +<p>“<em>Eugene!</em>” cried Madelon, and her voice seemed +to carry wrath like a trumpet. She laid hold of his shoulders, and +forced him back, and Dorothy slipped out of his arms and stood aside, +trembling and weeping, with a little worked apron which she wore +thrown over her face. “Let me be!” Eugene cried, angrily, +and would have gone to Dorothy again to comfort her, but Madelon in +her wrath was as strong as he, and she thrust herself between +them.</p> + +<p>“You are no brother of mine, Eugene Hautville,” she +said, her face all white and fierce with anger. “You dare to +touch her again, and you will find out that I can fight to keep her +from you as well as Burr could if he were here. You <em>dare</em> to +touch her again!” Then she turned to Dorothy. “Give me +the silk,” she said, in a hard voice. In her heart she blamed +her more than her brother, although unnecessarily.</p> + +<p>Dorothy shrank back. “No,” she said, feebly, “I +had better not.”</p> + +<p>“Give me the silk!”</p> + +<p>Dorothy gave her the silk. Eugene stood apart. He possessed his +fine pride and graceful self-poise again, and though his blood boiled +he would not, being a man, wrestle with his sister for another man's +bride.</p> + +<p>Dorothy moved towards the door, her fair curls drooping over her +agitated face. Eugene made a motion in her direction, and when +Madelon would have thrust him back again, he only said, with a +half-smile, “I would crave the lady's pardon; you would not +prevent that.” And then he bowed low before Dorothy Fair, and +besought her to pardon, if she could, his unseemly conduct, and +believe that it had for motive only the highest respect and esteem +for her.</p> + +<p>And Dorothy swept her curls farther over her face, and could not +make the dignified response of offended maidenhood that she should, +but courtesied tremblingly and fairly fled out of the house.</p> + +<p>Eugene, with his Shakespeare book under his arm, went also out of +the house and over across the field, to a piney wood he loved, where +all the trees, even in this warm flush of spring, whispered eternally +of winter and the north, and there he stretched himself out beneath a +tree, as melancholy as Jacques in the forest of Arden. Now that he +had got the better of his impulse of mad passion and jealousy, he was +ashamed, and stayed late in the wood, for he did not like to meet his +sister's rightly scornful face.</p> + +<p>When he went at last late for his supper, Madelon, as he expected, +noticed him only by an angry flash of her black eyes, under drooping +lids. She said not one word to him, and as the days went on treated +him coldly; and yet she did not give to the matter its full +seriousness of meaning.</p> + +<p>Madelon, well acquainted with Eugene's caressing manner, thought +simply that, seeing poor Dorothy's alarm, he had striven to soothe +her with endearments and assurance that he would not hurt her, as he +would have done with a child. As for Dorothy, Madelon credited her +with the soft spirit which she knew she possessed. She scorned them +both, and felt as jealous for Burr's sake as he himself could have +done, that other hands than his had touched his bride's; and yet she +did not dream of the full significance of it all.</p> + +<p>She wrought a marvellous garland of red roses on Dorothy Fair's +green silk, and scarcely left herself time to sleep that she might +complete that and her stint of household linen. She had nothing to +add to her own wedding-garments.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXI</h4> + +<p>The weeks went past, and the Sunday before the day set for her +wedding came again. She had seen Lot but three times in the interval. +He had sent for her, and she had gone obediently, and remained a +short time, pleading her work as an excuse to return home. Lot had +not sought to detain her; he had vexed her with no vain appeals, but +treated her with a sort of sad deference which would have perplexed +her had she cared enough for him to dwell upon it.</p> + +<p>Lot was said to be in no better health. He did not stir abroad on +those warm spring days. Once he had put on his great-coat, and was +for setting foot on the springing grass in the sunny yard, but +Margaret Bean had remarked to him how she had heard, whilst +purchasing a bit of cheese in the store, a man say that he guessed +Lot Gordon wasn't much worse, only afraid of a wife that could use a +knife. Margaret Bean had shaken in her starched petticoats as she +said it, not knowing how the news might affect her master towards the +monger of it; but she was disposed to risk a little rather than have +a mistress over her.</p> + +<p>Lot said nothing in response about the matter, but pulled off his +great-coat and sank into his chair with a fit of coughing, and +declared he felt not well enough to go out that day.</p> + +<p>That last Sunday Madelon went to him without being summoned, in +the early evening after supper. On her last visit, the week before, +he had asked her, and she had promised to come.</p> + +<p>The frogs were calling across the meadows as she went along; there +was a young moon shining with frequent silvery glances through the +budding trees, which tossed athwart it like foam, and the mists +curled along the horizon distances. Madelon, moving along, was as the +ghost of one who had belonged to the spring, as a part of its radiant +hope and stir of life and youth in days past, but was now done with +it forever. The spring sounds and sights, and all its sweet +influence, seemed to tear her heart anew with memories of the visions +of fair futures which she had forfeited. The loss of the sweet dreams +which the spring awakens in the human heart is not one of the least +losses of life. Though the spring be unfulfilled, it sweetens the +year.</p> + +<p>Just before Madelon reached Lot Gordon's house, she met Burr going +to court Dorothy. They were to be married in two weeks more. Madelon +and Burr exchanged a murmur of salutations and passed each other.</p> + +<p>Madelon went directly into Lot's house, to his sitting-room, as +she was used to do lately, and found Lot standing in the midst of the +room, waiting for her, with a lighted candle in his hand.</p> + +<p>“I heard your footstep when you came through that open +space, where the road has a hollow echo,” he said; “and I +have been waiting for you ever since.”</p> + +<p>“You could not hear me; it is a half-mile away,” said +Madelon.</p> + +<p>“A half-mile! what's a hundred miles when 'tis the heart +that listens, and not the ears? Come; I have something I want to show +you.”</p> + +<p>Lot led the way and Madelon followed out of the room across the +front entry, with its spiral of stair mounting its landscape-papered +height, and Lot opened the door of the opposite room, the great north +parlor. “Wait here a minute,” he said to Madelon, and she +waited in the entry after he entered until he called her to +follow.</p> + +<p>Lot had lighted every candle in the great branching candelabra +upon the shelf, and the room was full of light. Madelon looked about +her, and even her despairing calm was stirred a little. Never had she +seen or dreamed of a room like this. She grasped no details; her +bewildered eyes saw them all melting into each other, combining newly +and vanishing like kaleidoscopic pictures—folds and gleaming +stretches of crimson damask and velvet, the dark polish of precious +woods, spots and arabesques of gold and the satin shimmer of +wall-paper, lights and shades of steel engravings, and elegant and +graceful lady-treasures of gilded books and work-boxes and vases on +shelf and tables. There was even a little piano, the only one in the +village, with slender, fluted legs, and a mother-of-pearl garland +over the key-board.</p> + +<p>“I have had this all newly furnished for you. I hope it may +please you,” said Lot; and he looked at Madelon with hollow, +wistful eyes.</p> + +<p>That brought her to herself. “It is very pretty,” she +replied, and turned away.</p> + +<p>Lot sighed. “Well, I have something more to show you,” +said he, and went forlornly before her, stooping weakly and coughing +now and then, into the great middle room of the house, which was +fitted up with carven oak which Governor Winthrop might have used. +Here, too, Lot lighted all the branches of the candelabra on the +shelf; and the great buffet directly responded with the dazzling +white glitter of silver from the cream-jugs and ewers and spoons +thereon.</p> + +<p>Then Lot threw open the fine carved doors of the cupboard, and the +shelves were covered with precious blue china, brought from over +seas, and wine-glasses like bubbles of crystal, and decanters as +graceful as plumes.</p> + +<p>“Do you like it, Madelon?” Lot asked; and Madelon +replied, as before, that it was pretty.</p> + +<p>Lot showed Madelon all the wealth of his house before they +returned to the sitting-room. Much had been there from his father's +day, but much had been added to please this bride, who looked at it +more coldly and with less part in it than she would have looked at +the treasures in a merchant's windows. She saw, unmoved by any pride +of possession, great canopied bedsteads, and chests of drawers whose +carven tops reached the ceiling, and mirrors in gilded frames. She +saw marvellous stores of linen damask napery in such delicate and +graceful designs, from foreign looms, as she had never dreamed. She +saw an India shawl, and lengths of silk and satin and velvet, and +turned away from it all to the obstinate contemplation and endurance +of her own misery.</p> + +<p>At last Lot led the way back to the sitting-room. He set the +candle on the shelf, and gave a strange, beseeching glance around the +room at his books. It was as if he besought, with the irrationality +of grief, those only friends he fairly knew for help and +sympathy.</p> + +<p>Then he turned to Madelon and laid a hand on each of her +shoulders, and looked at her. “No, there is no need now,” +he said, when she would have shrunk away from him; and something in +his voice hushed her, and she stood still.</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” said Lot Gordon, “tell me true, as +before God. You are a woman, and always, I have heard, a woman takes +comfort and pleasure in life with such gear as I have shown you, +alone, even if she has little else. Would not all this give you some +little happiness, even as my wife, Madelon?”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at Lot and hesitated. She had a feeling that her +word of reply would stab him more cruelly than her knife had +done.</p> + +<p>“Madelon, tell me!”</p> + +<p>“Will you have the truth?”</p> + +<p>Lot nodded.</p> + +<p>“No, Lot.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon, I can buy you more than all this. Are you +sure?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>Lot gave a great sigh. “Dearly bought possessions are worse +than poverty, you hold,” said he. “Then, Madelon, there +is no sweetening in all this for your bondage?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “I shall do my duty, as I have +promised,” she said. “All this is useless. Let me go, +Lot.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon!”</p> + +<p>She looked up in his face, and a strange awe came over her at the +look in it. A more secret lurking-place than any of the little wild +things that he loved to discover had the self in Lot Gordon, and +Madelon saw it for the first time, and perhaps he, also.</p> + +<p>“True love exists not unless it can do away with the desire +of possession. I love you, Madelon,” said Lot; and then he let +go of her shoulders and went over to the mantel-shelf, and leaned +against it, with his head bent.</p> + +<p>Madelon, all bewildered and trembling, stared at him.</p> + +<p>“I—don't think I know what you mean,” she gasped +out, finally.</p> + +<p>“You are—free,” said Lot.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXII</h4> + +<p>That year, spring seemed to break over the village in a day, like +a green flood. All at once people's thoughts were interrupted, and +their eyes turned from selfish joys or pains by the emerald flash of +fields and hill-sides in the morning sun, and the white flutter of +flowering boughs past their windows like the festal garments of +unexpected guests.</p> + +<p>The first week in May, the cherry-trees were in blossom, and the +alders and shad bushes were white in the borders of the woods against +the filmy green of the birches. The young women got out their summer +muslins, and trimmed their bonnets anew; their faces, all unknown to +themselves, took on a new meaning of the spring, like new flowers, +and the young men looked after them as they passed as if they were +strangers in the village.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of Wednesday, in the first week of May, Eugene +Hautville strolled across-lots over to the village. Through the +fields north of the Hautville place there was an old foot-path to the +former site of an old homestead, long ago burned to the ground and +its ashes dissipated on winds long died away. The oldest inhabitants +in the village barely remembered the house that used to stand there. +The slant of its roof crossed their minds dimly when they spoke of +it: they could not agree as to whether it had faced north or south. +It might have seemed almost fabulous, had it not been for the thicket +of old lilacs purpling with bloom every spring, which had first grown +before its windows, and the perennial houseleek which had clustered +round the door.</p> + +<p>Then, too, east of where the house had stood there was an old +apple orchard, the trees thereof bent to the ground like distorted +old men, and, when spring came, bearing scarcely one bough of pink +bloom, among others shaggy with gray moss like the beard of age.</p> + +<p>Then, also, the lane still remained which had stretched, in days +gone by, from the northward of the old house to the highway. The lane +had divided the fields of the old landowners, and had been the +thoroughfare for the dwellers in the house when they went to meeting +and to mill.</p> + +<p>The Hautvilles often used it in the summer-time for a short-cut to +the village. Eugene went along this foot-path, which was in its way a +little humble track of history of simple village life, passed the +site of the house, and then struck into the lane. It stretched before +him like a shaft of green light. The afternoon sun shone through +young willow-leaves, transparent like green glass. Low overhead hung +rosy tassels from out-reaching boughs of maples. Between the trees, +the flowering alders seemed gleaming out of sight before him like the +white skirts of maidens. Here and there the ground was blue with +violets. Eugene picked some half mechanically, as he went along, and +made a little nosegay, with some sprigs of alder. He was half through +the lane, and had just emerged from a clump of alders, when he saw +Dorothy Fair coming. She gave a start when she saw him appear with a +great jostling of white branches, and made as if she would have fled; +then she held up her head with gentle dignity and advanced, lifting +her lady-skirts with dainty fingers on either side. Mistress Dorothy, +being weary of fine needle-work upon her bridal linen, had come out a +little way to take the air, and naturally enough had chosen for her +walk this sweet lane, which opened upon the highway a stone's-throw +below her house.</p> + +<p>If Eugene Hautville, at sight of her, felt a quaking of his +spirit, and would also fain have fled, he made no sign, but walked on +proudly like a prince, with a bold yet graceful swing of his stalwart +shoulders. And when he and Dorothy met, he bowed low before her, and +she courtesied and he bade her good-day quite clearly, and she +murmured a response with pretty, prim lips; and they would have +passed on had not both, as if constrained by hands of force upon +their necks, raised their faces and looked of a sudden into each +other eyes with that same old look which they had exchanged in the +meeting-house long ago.</p> + +<p>Dorothy Fair wore on that day a thin wool gown of a mottled blue +color like a dapple of spring violets. It was laid across her bosom +in smooth plaits, and showed at the throat her finely wrought lace +kerchief. The sun was so warm that she had put on her white straw hat +with blue ribbons, and her soft curls flowed from under it to her +blue belt ribbon. She wore, too, her little black-silk apron, +cunningly worked in the corners with flowers in colored silks. +Dorothy looked up in Eugene Hautville's face, and he looked down at +her, for a force against which they had come into the world unarmed +constrained them. Then she bent her head before him until he could +see nothing but the white slant of her hat, and caught at her silk +apron as if she would hide her face with that also.</p> + +<p>Eugene stood still looking at her, his face radiant and glowing +red. “Dorothy!” he stammered, and then Dorothy +straightened herself suddenly, though she kept her face averted, +flung up her head, caught up her blue skirts again, and made as if +she would pass on without another word. Eugene, with his face all at +once white, and his head proudly raise, stood aside to let her pass. +“'Tis a warm day for the season,” he said, with his old +graceful courtesy. But Dorothy looked up at him again as she neared +him in passing, and her sweet mouth was quivering like a frightened +baby's, and the tears were in her blue eyes, and no man who loved her +could have let her go by; and certainly not this fiery young Eugene. +Suddenly, and with seemingly no more involvement of wills or ethics +than the alders in their blossoming, the two were in each other's +arms, and their lips were meeting in kisses.</p> + +<p>This fair and demure daughter of Puritans might well, as she stood +there in her lover's embrace, being already, as she was, the +betrothed bride of another, have been accounted fickle and false, but +perhaps in a sense she was not. Never had she forgot or been untrue +to her first love-dreams, which Eugene had caused, but had held to +them with that mild negative obstinacy of her nature which she could +not herself overcome. Now it was to her as if she were reconciled to +her true lover, and was faithful instead of false; and less false she +surely was to her own self.</p> + +<p>Right contentedly had she loved for a time Burr's love for her and +his tenderness, and had been stirred thereby to passion, but now she +loved this other man for something better than her own sweet image in +his eyes.</p> + +<p>Never a word she said, but her hat slipped down on her shoulders, +hanging by its blue strings, and she let her head lie on Eugene's +shoulder, with a strange sense of wontedness and of remembering +something which had never been.</p> + +<p>And, also, all Eugene's fond words in her ear seemed to her like +the strains of old songs which were past her memory. Burr's, although +she had listened happily, had never seemed to her like that.</p> + +<p>They stood together so for a few minutes, while the alder-flowers +shook out sweetness, as from perfumed garments, at their side, and a +bee who had left his hive and winter honey, and made that day another +surprise of spring, hummed from one white raceme to another and then +was away, disappearing in the blue air with a last gleam of filmy +wing as behind a sapphire wall.</p> + +<p>Neither of the lovers had knowingly heard the bee's hum, but when +it ceased the silence seemed to make an accusing sense audible to +them. They let each other go and stood apart guiltily, as if some one +had entered the lane and was spying upon them.</p> + +<p>Dorothy spoke first, without raising her pale little face, all +drooped round with her curls. “What shall I do?” she +said, like a child. She was trembling, and could scarcely control her +tongue.</p> + +<p>Eugene made no reply. He stood looking moodily at the ground, +where his nosegay of violets and alders was all scattered and +trampled.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he had the feeling as of a thief in another man's garden, +and a shame before Dorothy herself came over him. Eugene Hautville's +principles of honor, in spite of his fiery nature, read like a +primer, with no subtleties of evasion therein. Here was another man's +betrothed, and he had wooed her away! He had kissed her lips, which +were vowed to another. He had wronged her and Burr Gordon also. +Strangely enough, Dorothy's own responsibility never occurred to him +at all; he never dreamed of blaming her for falsity either to himself +or Burr. That little fair trembling creature, clad like a violet in +her mottled blue, seemed to him at once above and below all questions +of personal agency. She bloomed like a flower in her garden, +infinitely finer than those who wrangled around her and strove to +gather her, and yet in a measure helpless before them.</p> + +<p>In a moment Dorothy answered her question negatively herself: +“I will not marry Burr,” she said, without raising her +head, and yet with that tone of voice which accompanies a lift of +chin and stiffening of the neck muscles.</p> + +<p>Eugene looked at her, and extended his arms as if he would take +her to him again; then drew them back. “I do not know what to +counsel you,” he said, slowly. Then his eyes fell before the +sudden shame and distress in Dorothy's.</p> + +<p>“You do not know what do counsel me!” she cried. +“Then you do not—care—” Tears rolled over +her cheeks, and Eugene gathered her into his arms again, and laid his +cheek against her fair head, and soothed her as he would have soothed +a child. “There, there,” he whispered, “it is not +that, it is not that, sweet. I would die for you, I love you so! It +is not that, but you are the promised wife of another man. How can I +turn a thief even for you, Dorothy? How can I bid you be false, and +forswear yourself? There's honor as well as love, child.”</p> + +<p>“But love is honor,” said Dorothy.</p> + +<p>“Not for a man,” said Eugene.</p> + +<p>Then she clung to him softly and modestly, and sobbed, and he +kissed her hair and whispered in one breath that she was all his own, +and in another that he knew not what to do, and was near distracted +between his love and his sense of honor, until Dorothy said something +which set him pleading for his rival whether he would or no, for the +sake of stern justice.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid of him, I am afraid of Burr,” Dorothy +whispered in his ear. “How could I have married him, when I was +so afraid, even if you had not come?”</p> + +<p>“Afraid?”</p> + +<p>“<em>You—know—what—they said—Burr +did!</em>”</p> + +<p>Eugene held her away from him by her slender arms, and looked at +her. “You did not believe that?”</p> + +<p>“He would not tell me he was innocent, even when I begged +him so.”</p> + +<p>“You knew he was.”</p> + +<p>“Why did he not tell me, when I begged him so?” she +said, and the soft unyielding in her tone was absolute.</p> + +<p>“Dorothy!”</p> + +<p>“I am so afraid—you don't know,” she whispered, +piteously.</p> + +<p>“But—you know Burr was cleared.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I know, but even now he will not tell me on the Bible, +as I asked him, that he is innocent.”</p> + +<p>“Dorothy, he <em>is</em> innocent,” Eugene said, with +solemn and bitter emphasis of which she knew not the full +meaning.</p> + +<p>“Then why does he not swear that he is, to me?” Back +went Dorothy always, in all reasoning, to the starting-point in her +own mind.</p> + +<p>“I tell you he is, child. It has been proven so.”</p> + +<p>“Then why—” Dorothy began, but Eugene +interrupted her in her circle. “There is no more cause for you +to fear him than me,” he said almost harshly, in his stern +resolve to be just. Then Dorothy turned on him with sudden passion. +“I am afraid,” she cried out, “I shall always be +afraid; even if he were to swear to me now that he is innocent, I +shall always be afraid, for I coupled him with that awful deed once +in my thoughts, and I cannot separate him from it forever. He will +always hold the knife in his hand; even if it were not for you, I +should be near mad with fear. I bid black Phyllis stay by the door +when he comes.”</p> + +<p>“Dorothy!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do. What my mind has once laid hold of, that it will +not let go. I cannot separate him from my old thought of him. I have +tried to be faithful, and true, but even had he sworn to me that he +was innocent, the fear would have remained. Save me from +him—oh, Eugene, save me!”</p> + +<p>But Eugene put her quite away from him, and looked at her almost +sternly. His honor held the reins now in good earnest. The suspicion +of Madelon, which he had never owned to himself, became a certainty. +He defended his rival as strenuously as he would have defended +himself, since it involved truth to himself. “I swear to you, +Dorothy Fair,” he said, “that Burr Gordon is innocent, +and that your fear of him is groundless.”</p> + +<p>Dorothy looked at him with dilated eyes. She said not a word, but +her mind travelled its circle again.</p> + +<p>“It is so,” said Eugene; “I know it.”</p> + +<p>Still Dorothy looked at him.</p> + +<p>“All my heart is yours,” Eugene went on, “but I +would rather it broke, and yours too, before I counselled you to be +false to a man for a reason like that.”</p> + +<p>A flush came over Dorothy's face. She pulled her straw hat from +her shoulders to her head, and tied the blue strings under her chin. +She gathered up daintily a fold of her blue mottled skirt on either +side. “Then I will marry Burr this day week,” she said. +“I will endeavor to be a good and true wife to him, and I pray +you to forget if you can what has passed between us +to-day.”</p> + +<p>She said this as calmly and authoritatively as her father could +have said it in the pulpit, and courtesied slightly, then went on +down the lane and out into the open beyond, with a soft tilt of her +blue skirts and as gently proud a carriage as when she walked into +the meeting-house of a Sabbath.</p> + +<p>Eugene said not a word to stop her, but stood staring after her. +All his study of his Shakespeare helped him not to an understanding +of this one girl, whom he saw with love-dimmed eyes. This sudden +abetting on her part of his resolve gave him a sense of earthquake +and revolution, yet he did not call her back or follow her.</p> + +<p>He proceeded through the lane to the highway, then a few yards +farther to the store, to get his Boston weekly paper. The mail had +come in. On this warm spring day the loafers on the boxes and barrels +within the store had crawled out to the bench on the piazza and sat +there in a row. All mental states have their illustrative lives of +body. This shabby row leaned and lopped and settled upon themselves, +into all the lines and curves and downward slants of laziness, and +with rank tobacco-smoke curling about them, like the very languid +breath of it. However, when Eugene Hautville drew near, there was a +slight shuffling stir; a drawling hum of conversation ceased, and +when he entered the store their eyes followed him, bright with +furtive attention. The mill of gossip had ground slowly in this heavy +spring atmosphere, but it had ground steadily. They had been +discussing Madelon Hautville and the breaking off of her marriage +with Lot Gordon. It was village property by this time, and all +tongues were exercised over it.</p> + +<p>“Why ain't Lot Gordon goin' to marry her?” they asked +each other, and exchanged answering looks of dark suspicion. The +reason for not marrying which Lot used every means in his power to +promulgate—his fast-failing health—gained little +credence. The story came directly from the doctor's wife that Lot +Gordon was no worse than he had been for the last ten years, and was +likely to live ten years to come. Margaret Bean was said to have told +a neighboring woman, who told another, who in her turn told another, +and so started an endless chain of good authority, that Lot Gordon +had never coughed so little as he did this spring, and “ate +like a pig.” He was, it is true, never seen on the highway, +but there were those who said he was abroad again in his old woodland +haunts.</p> + +<p>“Guess he didn't change his mind about havin' Mad'lon +Hautville 'cause he was so much worse than common,” they said; +“guess when the time drawed near he was afraid.” +Margaret Bean was, furthermore, on good authority reported to have +intimated that never, if Madelon had come to that house while she was +in it, would she and her husband have gone to bed without the +scissors in the latch of their bedroom door.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon, who had forsworn himself to save Madelon, was now, by +his last sacrifice for her, bidding fair to prove what her own +assertions had failed to do—her guilt. He crept out secretly +into cover of the woods, now and then, on a mild day; he could not +deny himself that. But otherwise he stayed close, and coughed hard +when there were listening ears, and complained like any old woman of +his increasing aches and pains. Still his cunning availed little, +although he did not dream of it.</p> + +<p>He went not among the gossips himself, and no one as yet had +ventured to approach him with the rumor that was fast gaining +ground.</p> + +<p>No one had ventured to broach the matter to the Hautville men, for +obvious reasons. “I wouldn't vally your skin if that fellar +overheard what you was sayin' of when he come up the road, Joe +Simpson,” one loafer drawled to another, when Eugene left the +store that afternoon and had disappeared going the long way home.</p> + +<p>“Hush up, will ye!” whispered the other, glancing +around pale under his unshaven beard as if he feared Eugene might yet +be there. The Hautville men, however, hearing nothing, and saying +nothing about the matter to each other, had always, among themselves, +a subtle exchange of uneasy thought concerning it. If one sat moodily +by and moved out of her way without a word while Madelon prepared a +meal, the others knew what it meant. They also knew well the meaning +of each other's glances at her, and sudden lowering of brows. Madelon +herself did not know. When she had come home that Sunday night, and +announced that she was not going to be married at all, she had not +understood the sharp questioning, and then the stern quiet that +followed upon it. She had told them simply that Lot said that his +lungs were gone; that he had ascertained the fact himself through his +own knowledge of medicine; that he could only live a wreck of a man, +if at all, and, knowing it was so, had made up his mind that he would +not marry.</p> + +<p>Lot had indeed told her so, and had made her believe it, doing +away with much of the force of his giving her up for the sake of his +love. It is difficult in any case for one to understand fully the +love to which he cannot respond, for involuntarily the heart averts +itself from it like an ear or an eye, and misses it like the highest +notes of music and colors of the spectrum.</p> + +<p>Madelon had stared dumbly at Lot when he told her she was free, +and for a moment indeed had struggled with a consciousness which +would have stirred her at least into pity and gratitude and remorse, +which she had never known, had not Lot recovered himself and spoken +again in his old manner. He tapped himself on his hollow chest. +“After all,” he said, “'tis best you are not +seduced like most of your sex into making the accessories of life +supply the lack of the primal needs of it, into taking sugar instead +of bread, and weakening your stomach and your understanding. 'Tis +best for you and best for me, and best for those that might come +after us. Treasure of house and land and fine apparel and furnishings +may be a goodly inheritance, but our heirs would thank us more for +power to draw the breath of life freely, and you would do better +without a gown to your back, or a shoe to your foot, and a mate that +was not half a dead man; and I should do better alone in my anteroom +of the tomb than with another life to disturb the peace of it, and +rouse me to efforts which will send me farther on.”</p> + +<p>Madelon had stared at him, not knowing what to say, with +compassion, and yet with growing conviction of his selfish ends, +which disturbed it.</p> + +<p>Lot tapped his chest again. “My lungs are gone,” he +said, shortly; “I need no doctor to tell me. I know enough of +physics myself to send the whole village stumbling, instead of +racing, into their graves, if I choose to use it. My lungs are gone, +and you are well quit of me, and I of a foolish undertaking, though +of a charming bride. Now, go your way, child, and take up your maiden +dreams again, for all me.”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him proudly, although she was half dazed by what +she heard. “I care nothing for all the fine things you have +shown me,” said she, “and I have told you truly always +that I do not care for you, but I will keep my promise to marry you +unless you yourself bid me to break it.”</p> + +<p>“I bid you to break it,” said Lot, steadily, and his +eyes met hers, and his old mocking smile played over his white face. +Then suddenly he bent over with his racking cough, and Madelon made a +step towards him, but he motioned her away. +“Good-night—child,” he gasped out.</p> + +<p>Then Madelon had gone home and told her father and brothers, and +thought their strange reception of the news due to anything but the +truth. She had told them that she was guilty of wounding Lot Gordon +almost to death. That they should now be rendered uneasy by +suspicions, when she had given them actual knowledge, was something +beyond her imagination. She fancied rather that they considered Lot +had treated her badly, or else that she had a longing love for Burr, +and, perhaps, had herself broken off her match with his cousin on +that account. She strove hard to bear herself in such a manner that +they should not think that. She put on as gay a face as she could +muster, and even took, beside the dress, a little blue-silk mantle to +embroider for Dorothy Fair's wedding outfit, and sang over it as she +worked.</p> + +<p>Still, in a way, although her pride led her to it, her singing and +her gayety were no pretence, for Madelon, through much suffering, had +reached that growth in love which enabled her to see over her own +self and her own needs. That knife-thrust she had meant for her lover +had stilled forever the jealous temper in her own heart, and she +fairly dreamed as she embroidered Dorothy's bridal mantle some dreams +of happiness that might have been Burr's; so filled was she with +purest love for him that his imagination possessed her own.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIII</h4> + +<p>It was told on good authority in the village that Parson Fair had +paid all Burr Gordon's back interest money on his mortgage, and so +released him from the danger of foreclosure; and then on equally good +authority it was denied. There was much discussion over it, but one +day the loafers in the store arrived at the truth. Parson Fair had +indeed offered to pay the interest, and Burr had declined. He had +also refused to live with his bride in his father-in-law's house, and +when Parson Fair had, with his gracefully austere manner, intimated +that he should be unwilling to place his daughter in such uncertain +shelter, had replied harshly that Dorothy should have a roof over her +head of his own providing while he lived; when he was dead it would +be time to talk about her father's.</p> + +<p>When Burr had gone to Lot Gordon and offered to part with a small +wood-lot of his, with a quantity of half-grown wood thereon, at +two-thirds of its real value to pay the interest, Margaret Bean had +listened at the door, and thus the story.</p> + +<p>“It is a sacrifice of a full third of its value, you know +well enough,” Burr had said, standing moodily before his +cousin. “If I could wait for the growth of the wood, 'twould +bring much more, but I'll call it even on the interest I owe you, if +you will. This is the last foot of land I own clear.”</p> + +<p>For answer Lot had bidden Burr open his desk and bring him a +certain paper from a certain corner. Then Margaret Bean had opened +the door a crack, and had with her two peering eyes seen Lot Gordon +take his pen in hand and write upon the paper, and show it to his +cousin Burr.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Burr, “I will go home and get +the deed of the wood-lot,” and motioned towards the door, which +drew to in a soft panic as if with the wind.</p> + +<p>“Stop,” said Lot; and Margaret Bean paused in her +flight, and laid her ear to the door again. “I don't want your +woodland,” said Lot. “The interest is paid without it. It +is your wedding-gift.”</p> + +<p>“Why should you do this? I did not ask you to,” Burr +returned, almost defiantly; and Margaret Bean had felt indignant at +his unthankfulness.</p> + +<p>“You can take from your kinsman what you could not take from +Parson Fair,” replied Lot. “I hear you will not go to +nest in Parson Fair's snug roof-tree, with your pretty bird, +either.”</p> + +<p>“I will die before I will take my wife under any roof but my +own,” cried Burr, fiercely, “and I want no gifts from you +either. I am not turned beggar from any one yet. You shall take the +woodland.”</p> + +<p>Lot waved his hand as if he swept the woodland, with all its +half-grown trees, out of his horizon. “And yet,” he said, +“I thought 'twas what you left the other for. I should have +said 'twas but your wage that was offered you;” and he smiled +at his cousin.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Lot Gordon?”</p> + +<p>Lot looked at him with sharp interest. “Was there another +leaf of you to read when I thought I was at the end,” said he, +“or were you writ in such plain characters that I put in +somewhat of my own imaginings to give substance to them? Are you +better, and worse, than I thought you, cousin? Do you love this +flower that has her counterpart in all the gardens of the world, that +is as sweet and no sweeter, that you can replace when she dies by +stooping and picking, better than the one which has thorns enough to +kill and sweetness enough to pay for death, and whose bloom you can +never match?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know what you mean,” Burr said, impatiently +and angrily; and Margaret Bean outside the door wagged her head in +scornful assent.</p> + +<p>“Then you loved Dorothy Fair better than Madelon Hautville, +and 'twas not her place and money that turned you her way,” +said Lot, as if he were translating; and he kept his keen eyes on the +other's face.</p> + +<p>Burr's face flashed white. “What right have you to question +me like this?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“But you would not take the price, after all,” said +Lot, as if he had been answered, instead of questioned. Then he +looked up at his cousin with something like kindness in his blue +eyes. “It proves the truth of what I've thought before,” +he said, “that oftentimes a man has to sting his own honor with +his own deeds to know 'tis in him.”</p> + +<p>“My honor is my own lookout,” Burr said, harshly.</p> + +<p>“And you've looked out for it better than I thought,” +Lot returned.</p> + +<p>Burr made another motion towards the door. “I can't stand +here any longer,” he said. “I'll go for the deed.” +Margaret Bean, moving as softly as she could in her starched +draperies, fled back to the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute,” Lot said.</p> + +<p>“Well,” returned Burr, impatiently.</p> + +<p>Lot got up, went over to the mantel-shelf, and stood there a +minute, leaning against it, his face hidden. When he looked at Burr +again he was so white that his cousin started. “Are you +sick?” he cried, with harsh concern.</p> + +<p>Lot smiled with stiff lips. “Only with the life-sickness +that smites the child when it enters the world, and makes it weep +with its first breath,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“If you want to say anything to me, Lot, talk like a man, +and not a book,” Burr cried out, with another step towards the +door; and yet he spoke kindly enough, for there was something in his +cousin's face which aroused his pity.</p> + +<p>“It is not—” began Lot, and stopped, and caught +his breath. Burr watched him half alarmed; he looked in mortal agony. +Lot clutched the carven edge of the mantel-shelf, then loosened his +fingers. “If,” he said, brokenly, looking at Burr with +the eyes of one who awaits a mortal blow, “you +want—Madelon—it is not—too late. She—I know +how she feels—towards you.”</p> + +<p>Burr turned white, as he stared at him. “She—she was +going to marry you!” he said with a sneer.</p> + +<p>“Do—you know why?”</p> + +<p>Burr shook his head, still staring at his cousin.</p> + +<p>“It was the price of—your—acquittal.”</p> + +<p>Burr did not move his eyes from Lot's face. He looked as if he +were reading something there writ in startling characters, against +which his whole soul leaped up in incredulity. “My God, I +see!” he groaned out slowly, at length. And then he said, +sharply, “But—you were going to marry her. Why did you +give her up?”</p> + +<p>“I loved her,” Lot said, simply. His white face +worked.</p> + +<p>“But now—you—ask me to—”</p> + +<p>“I love her!” Lot said again, with a gasp.</p> + +<p>Burr strode forward, quite up to his cousin, and grasped his hand +warmly for the first time in his life. “Before the Lord, +Lot,” he said, huskily, “'twas you, and not me, she +should have fancied in the first of it.”</p> + +<p>“It is neither you nor me, nor any other man, that she will +ever love as he is,” Lot said, shortly, straightening himself, +for jealousy stung him hard.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Woman reverses creation. She is a sublimated particle of a +man, and she builds a god from her own superstructure, and clothes +him with any image whom she chooses. She chose yours. Live up to her +thought of you, if you can.”</p> + +<p>Burr dropped his cousin's hand, and surveyed him with that +impatient wonder which he always felt when he used his favorite +symbolic speech. “There's no question of my living up to the +thought of any woman's but my wife's,” he said, bitterly, and +turned away.</p> + +<p>“There's no knowing to what stature even a Dorothy Fair may +raise a man in her mind. You may not be able to grow to +that.”</p> + +<p>“It is all I shall attempt.”</p> + +<p>Then Lot spoke again, in that short-breathed voice of his, +straining between the syllables. “Be sure—that you +do—what—you will not—regret. Honor is +not—always what we—think it.”</p> + +<p>“I have my own conception of it at least, and that I live up +to. 'Tis high time,” said Burr, with a kind of proud scorn of +himself in his voice.</p> + +<p>“Madelon Hautville—loves—you.”</p> + +<p>“She does not, after all this.”</p> + +<p>“She does!”</p> + +<p>Burr stood straight and firm before his cousin, like a soldier. +“If she does,” said he, “and if she loved me with +the love of ten lives instead of one, and I her, as perhaps I do, +this last word of mine I will keep!” Then he went out with not +another word, and presently returned with the deed of his little +wooded property, which, however, his cousin Lot finally persuaded him +to keep, as Margaret Bean gathered at the door, whither she had +ventured again.</p> + +<p>The loafers knew it all by nightfall, the news having been brought +to the store by old Luke Basset, who had gotten it from Margaret +Bean's husband. In a day or two they knew more from the same source. +Lot Gordon had engaged his cousin to improve the Gordon acres which +had been lying fallow for the last ten years. He had offered him a +good salary. He wanted to carry out some new-fangled schemes which he +had got out of books. Burr was going right to work; he had hired a +man from New Salem to help him.</p> + +<p>People began to think better of Lot Gordon than they had ever +done, and they looked at Burr with more respect. Many had considered +that Dorothy Fair was not going to “do very well.” +“Guess if it wa'n't for her father, and the chance of Lot's +dying, she'd have a pretty poor prospect,” they had said. Now +they agreed that “Maybe Burr Gordon won't turn out so bad after +all. Maybe he'll settle right down and go to work, and pay off his +mortgage, when he gets married, and get a good living, even if Lot +should hold out some time to come.”</p> + +<p>They watched Burr as he swung up the street to Parson Fair's in +the spring twilights, with admiration for his stalwart grace, and +growing approval for those inner qualities which outward beauty +sometimes but poorly indicates. They approved also of the temperate +hours which he observed in his courting, for no one within eye-shot, +or ear-shot, but knew when Parson Fair's front door closed behind +him. Burr, during the last weeks before his marriage, never stayed +much later than half-past nine or ten at his sweetheart's house, and, +in truth, was not sorely tempted to do so. Mistress Dorothy in those +days behaved in a manner which might well have aroused to rebellion a +more ardent or a less determinately faithful lover. She had the +candles lit early in the beautiful spring twilights, and then she sat +and stitched and stitched upon her wedding finery, bending her fair +face, half concealed by drooping curls, assiduously over it, having +never a hand at liberty for a lover's caress, or an eye for his +smiles. Then, too, when Burr took leave, she stood before him with +such a strange effect of terror and hauteur that he could do no more +than touch her lips as if she had been a timid child, and bid her +good-night. Had Burr Gordon, in those days, been less aware of his +own unfaithfulness and weariness, and less fiercely resolved not to +yield to it, he might well have perceived Dorothy's. As it was he +confused her coldness with his own, and attributed it to the change +in his own heart, and not to that in hers. And even had he suspected +it he would not have made the first motion for freedom, so desperate +was his adherence to falsity for the sake of truth.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon had at stake in this last more than any temporal good +or ill of love. He had at stake his whole belief in himself, and he +was also actuated by another motive which he scarcely admitted in his +own thoughts.</p> + +<p>Convinced he was that Madelon Hautville, believing as she did that +he had forsaken her for honest love of another, would hold him in +utter scorn and contempt were she to discover him false to Dorothy as +she had been to her; and his very love of her love, strangely enough, +kept him true to her rival.</p> + +<p>So he went to see Dorothy, and found no fault with her coldness. +The wedding preparations went on, and at last the day came.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIV</h4> + +<p>The wedding was to be at eight o'clock in the evening, and nearly +all the village was bidden to it—even many of the Unitarian +faction who had been Parson Fair's old parishioners. At half-past +seven o'clock the street was full of people. The village women +rustled through the soft dusk with silken whispers of wide best +skirts. Young girls with spring buds in their hair flounced about +with white muslins, and fluttering with ribbons, flitted along. The +men, holding back firmly their best broadcloth shoulders, marched +past in their creaking Sunday shoes. Before eight o'clock the fine +old rooms in Parson Fair's house were lined with faces solemnly +expectant, as the faces of simple country folk are wont to be before +the great rites of love and death.</p> + +<p>The women sat with their mitted hands folded on their silken laps, +their best brooches pinning decorously their fine-wrought +neckerchiefs, their bosoms filled with sober knowledge and patient +acquiescence. The young girls sat among them very still, with the +stillness of unrest, like birds who alight only to fly, their soft +cheeks burning, their necks and arms showing rosy through their +laces, their little clasped fingers full of pulses, and their hearts +tumultuous and stirred to imagination by the sweet surmise and +ignorance of love. They looked seldom at the young men, and the young +men at them, as they sat waiting. Still there were some who had +learned in city schools the suavities which cover like clothes the +primal emotions of life, and they moved about with exchanges of fine +courtesies, while the others looked at them wondering.</p> + +<p>When the tall clock in the south room struck eight, there was a +hush among these few who had learned to flock gracefully, chattering +like birds, bearing always the same aspect to one another, without +regard to selfish joys or pains. The lawyer's wife, in a grand gown +and topknot of feathers, which she was said to have worn to a great +party at the governor's house in Boston, composed to majestic +approval her handsome florid face, and stood back with a white-gloved +hand on an arm of each of her daughters, slender and pretty, and +unshrinkingly radiant in the faces of the doctor's college-bred son +and his visiting classmate. The doctor's wife, also, who had come of +a grand family, and appeared always on festive occasions in some +well-preserved splendor of her maiden days, which had been prolonged, +drew back, spreading out with both hands a vast expanse of purple +velvet skirt. She quite eclipsed as with a murky purple cloud the two +meek elderly women and a timid young girl who sat behind her. They +immediately peered around her sumptuous folds with anxious eyes lest +they might lose sight of the bridal party; but the bridal party did +not come.</p> + +<p>A passageway was left quite clear to the space between the windows +on the west side of the room, where it was whispered the bride and +groom were to stand, and the people all pressed back towards the +walls; but no one came. A little hum of wondering conversation rose +and fell again at fancied stirs of entrance. Folk hushed and nudged +each other a dozen times, and craned their necks, and the clock +struck the half-hour, and the bridal party had not come.</p> + +<p>In a great chair near the clear space between the windows sat the +bridegroom's mother, with a large pearl brooch gleaming out of the +black satin folds on her bosom. Her face, between long lace lappets, +looked as clearly pallid and passively reflective as the pearls. Not +a muscle stirred about her calm mouth and the smooth triangle of +forehead between her curtain slants of gray hair. If she speculated +deeply within herself, and was agitated over the delay, not a +restless glance of her steadily mild eyes betrayed it.</p> + +<p>People wondered a little that she should not be busied about the +bridal preparations, instead of waiting there like any other guest; +but it was said that Dorothy had refused absolutely to have any +helping hands but those of her old black slave woman about her. It +was known, too, that Dorothy had only once taken tea with Burr's +mother since the engagement, and everybody speculated as to how they +would get on together. Dorothy had, in truth, received the rigorously +courteous overtures of her future mother with the polite offishness +of a scared but well-trained child, and the proud elder woman had not +increased them.</p> + +<p>“When she comes here to live I shall do my duty by her, but +I shall not force myself upon her,” she told Burr. Burr's +mother had not seen any of the dainty bridal gewgaws, but that she +kept to herself. People glanced frequently at her with questioning +eyes as the time went on; but she sat there with the gleam of her +personality as unchanged in her face as the gleam of the pearls on +her bosom.</p> + +<p>“Catch her looking flustered!” one woman whispered to +another. After the clock struck nine a long breath seemed to be drawn +simultaneously by the company; it was quite audible. Then came a +sharp hissing whisper of wonder and consternation; then a hush, and +all faces turned towards the door. Burr Gordon, his face stern and +white, stood there looking across at his mother. She rose at once and +went to him with a stately glide, and they disappeared amid a +distinct buzz of curiosity that could no longer be restrained.</p> + +<p>“They've gone into the parson's study,” whispered one +to another. Some reported, upon the good authority of a neighbor's +imagination, that Parson Fair had “fallen down dead;” +some that Dorothy had fainted away; some that the black woman had +killed her and her father.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Burr and his mother went into Parson Fair's study. +There stood the minister by his desk, with his proudly gentle brow +all furrowed, and his fine, long scholar-fingers clutching nervously +at the back of his arm-chair. He cast one glance around as the door +opened and shut, then looked away, then commanded himself with an +effort, and stepped forward and bowed courteously to the woman in her +black satin and pearls. Elvira Gordon looked from one to the other, +and the two men followed her glances, and each waited for the other +to speak.</p> + +<p>“Where is she?” she asked, finally.</p> + +<p>“She is up in her chamber,” replied Parson Fair, in a +voice more strained with his own anxiety than it had ever been in the +pulpit over the sins of his fellow-men. “I know not what to say +or do—I never thought that daughter of mine—she will not +come—”</p> + +<p>Then Elvira Gordon cast a quick, sharp glance at her son, which he +met with proud misery and resentment. “It is quite true, +mother,” he said. “We have both tried, and she will not +come.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps a woman—” said Parson Fair. “I +wish her mother were alive,” he added, with a break in his +voice.</p> + +<p>“I will go and see her if you think it is best,” said +Mrs. Gordon. In her heart she rebelled bitterly against seeming to +plead with this unwilling bride to come to her son. Had she not felt +guilty for her son, with the conviction of his own secret deflection, +she would never have mounted the spiral stairs to Dorothy Fair's +chamber that night. Parson Fair led the way, and Burr followed. The +people stood back with a kind of awed curiosity. Some of the young +girls were quite pale, and their eyes were dilated. Folk longed to +follow them up-stairs, but they did not dare.</p> + +<p>At the door of Dorothy's chamber crouched, like a fierce dog on +guard, the great black African woman. When the three drew near she +looked up at them with a hostile roll of savage eyes and a glitter of +white teeth between thick lips. The parson advanced, and she sprang +up and put her broad back against the door and rolled out defiance at +him from under her burring tongue.</p> + +<p>But he continued to advance with unmoved front, as if she had been +the Satanas of his orthodoxy, which, indeed, she did not faintly +image. She moved aside with a savage sound in her throat, and he +threw the door wide open. There sat Dorothy Fair before them at her +dimity dressing-table, with all her slender body huddled forward and +resting seemingly upon her two bare white arms, which encompassed her +bowed head like sweet rings. Not a glimpse of Dorothy's face could be +seen under the wide flow of her fair curls, which parted only a +little over the curve of one pink shoulder. Dorothy wore her +wedding-gown of embroidered India muslin; but her satin slippers were +widely separated upon the floor, as if she had kicked them hither and +thither; and on the bed, in a great, careless, fluffy heap, lay her +wedding-veil, as if it had been tossed there.</p> + +<p>Elvira Gordon, at a signal from Parson Fair, entered the room past +the sullen negress, who rolled her eyes and muttered low, and went +close to the girl at the dressing-table.</p> + +<p>“Dorothy!” said Mrs. Gordon.</p> + +<p>Dorothy made no sign that she heard.</p> + +<p>“Dorothy, do you know it is an hour after the time set for +your wedding?”</p> + +<p>Dorothy was so still that instinctively Mrs. Gordon bent close +over her and listened; but she heard quite plainly the soft pant of +her breath, and knew she had not fainted.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gordon straightened herself and looked at her. It was strange +how that delicate, girlish form under the soft flow of fair locks and +muslin draperies should express, in all its half-suggested curves, +such utter obstinacy that it might have been the passive +unresponsiveness of marble. Even that soft tumult of agitated breath +could not alter that impression. When Mrs. Gordon spoke again her +words seemed to echo back in her own ears, as if she had spoken in an +empty room.</p> + +<p>“Dorothy Fair,” said she, with a kind of solemn +authority, “neither I nor any other human being can look into +your heart and see why you do this; and you owe it to my son, who has +your solemn promise, and to your father, whose only child you are, to +speak. If you are sick, say so; if at the last minute you have a +doubt as to your affection for Burr, say so. My son will keep his +promise to you with his life, but he will not force himself upon you +against your wishes. You need fear nothing; but you must either speak +and give us your reason for this, or get up and put on your +wedding-veil and your shoes, and come down, where they have been +waiting over an hour. You cannot put such a slight upon my son, or +your father, or all these people, any longer. You do not think what +you are doing, Dorothy.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Gordon's even, weighty voice softened to motherly appeal in +the closing words. Dorothy remained quite silent and motionless. Then +Burr gave a great sigh of impatient misery, and strode across to +Dorothy, and bent low over her, touching her curls with his lips, and +whispered. She did not stir. “Won't you, Dorothy?” he +said, gently, then quite aloud; and then again, “Have you +forgotten what you promised me, Dorothy?” and still again, +“Are you sick? Have I offended you in any way? Can't you tell +me, Dorothy?”</p> + +<p>At length, when Dorothy persisted in her silence, he stood back +from her and spoke with his head proudly raised. “I will say no +more,” he said; “I have come here to keep my solemn +promise, and be married to you, and here I will remain until you or +your father bid me go, with something more than silence. That may be +enough for my pride, but 'tis not enough for my honor. I will go back +to your father's study, Dorothy, and wait there until you speak and +tell me what you wish.”</p> + +<p>Burr turned to go, but Parson Fair thrust out his arm before him +to stop him, and himself came forward and grasped Dorothy, with +hardly a gentle hand, by a slender arm. “Daughter,” said +Parson Fair in a voice which Dorothy had never heard from his lips +except when he addressed wayward sinners from the pulpit, “I +command you to stop this folly; stand up and finish dressing +yourself, and go down-stairs and fulfil your promise to this man whom +you have chosen.” The black woman pressed forward, then stood +back at a glance from her master's blue eyes.</p> + +<p>Dorothy did not stir; then her father spoke again, and his nervous +hand tightened on her arm. “Dorothy,” said he, “I +command you to rise”—and there was a great authority of +fatherhood and priesthood in his voice, and even Dorothy was moved +before it to respond, though not to yielding.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she jerked her arm away from her father's grasp, and +stood up, with a convulsive flutter of her white plumage like a bird. +She flung back her curls and disclosed her beautiful pale face, all +strained to terrified resolve, and her dilated blue eyes “I +will not!” she cried out, addressing her father alone, “I +will not, father. I have made up my mind that I will not.”</p> + +<p>Then, as Parson Fair said not a word, only looked at her with +stern questioning, she went on, shrill and fast, “I will not; +no, I will not! Nobody can make me! I thought I would, I thought I +must, until this last. Now when it comes to this, I can do no more. I +will not, father.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” said Parson Fair.</p> + +<p>“I would have kept my promise, father. I would have kept it, +no matter if—I would have been faithful to him if +he—” Suddenly Dorothy turned on Burr with a gasp of +terror and defiance. “I would never have done this, you +know,” she cried; “it would never have come to this, if +you had spoken and told me you were innocent.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, child?” said Parson Fair, +sternly.</p> + +<p>“He would not tell me that he did not stab his cousin +Lot,” replied Dorothy, setting her sweet mouth doggedly. Her +blue eyes met her father's with shrinking and yet steadfast +defiance.</p> + +<p>“Dorothy,” said he, “do you not know that he is +innocent by his cousin's own confession?”</p> + +<p>“Why, then, does he not say so?” finished Dorothy. +“How do I know who did it? Madelon Hautville said she was +guilty, then Lot Gordon; and Burr would not deny his guilt when I +asked him. How do I know which? Madelon Hautville was trying to +shield him; I am not blind. Then Lot liked her. How do I know +which?” Suddenly she cried out to Burr so loud that the people +in the entry below heard her, “Tell me now that you are +innocent, and either your cousin Lot or Madelon Hautville +guilty,” she demanded. “Tell me!”</p> + +<p>Burr, white and rigid, looked at her, and made no reply. +“Tell me,” she cried, in her sweet, shrill voice, +“tell me now that you did not stab your cousin Lot, and Madelon +Hautville spoke the truth, and I will keep my promise to you, even if +my heart is not yours.”</p> + +<p>Parson Fair grasped his daughter's arm again. “No man whom +you have promised to wed should reply to such distrust as +this,” he said. “Dorothy, I command you to go down-stairs +and be married to this man.”</p> + +<p>Then Dorothy broke away from him with a wild shriek. “No, I +will not marry this man with his cousin's blood on his soul! I will +not, father; you shall not make me! I will not! Night and day I shall +see that knife in his hand. I will not marry him, because he tried to +kill his cousin Lot. I will not, I will not!” The black woman +pushed between them with a savage murmur of love and wrath, and +caught her mistress in her arms, and crooned over her, like a wild +thing over her young.</p> + +<p>“There is no use in prolonging this, sir,” Burr said +to Parson Fair.</p> + +<p>The elder man looked at him with a strange mixture of helpless +dignity and sympathy and wrath. “You know that I have no share +in this,” he said, and he glanced almost piteously from Burr to +his mother. “I could never have believed that my +daughter—”</p> + +<p>“We will say no more about it, sir,” responded Burr. +“I hold neither you nor your daughter in any blame.” +Then he offered his arm to his mother, and the three went out and +down-stairs, and the black woman clapped to the chamber door with a +great jar upon her mistress, whose calm of obstinacy had broken into +wailing hysterics which betokened no less stanchness. Parson Fair, +Burr Gordon, and his mother, at the foot of the stairs among the +curious wedding-guests, looked for a second at one another.</p> + +<p>The parson's fine state seemed to have deserted him. There were +red spots on his pale cheeks. His long hands twitched nervously. +“I will—inform them,” he said, huskily, at length, +but Burr moved before him. “No, sir; I will do it,” he +said.</p> + +<p>Then he strode into the great north parlor, where the more +important guests were assembled, and where he and Dorothy were to +have been married. He stood alone in the clear space between the +windows, and knew, as the eyes of the people met his, that they had +heard Dorothy's last wild cry, and knew why she would not marry him. +He stood for a second facing them all before he spoke, and in spite +of the shame of rejection which he felt heaped upon him by them all, +and a subtler shame arising from his own heart, in spite of the fact +that he could not offer any defense, or do aught but bend his back to +the full weight of his humiliation, he had a certain majesty of +demeanor. Revolt at humiliation alone precipitates the full measure +of it, and the strength which survives defeat, even of one's own +convictions, is of a good quality. Silence under wrongful accusation +gives the bearing of a hero.</p> + +<p>There was a hush over the assembly so complete that it seemed as +if the very personalities of the listeners were drawn back from +self-consciousness to give free scope for sound. When Burr spoke, +everybody heard.</p> + +<p>“The marriage between Dorothy Fair and myself is broken +off,” was all he said. Then he went out of the room as proudly +as if his bride had been by his side, through the entry to the study. +Parson Fair and his mother were there. “They know it,” he +announced, quite calmly; then he took his fine wedding-hat from the +table.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” his mother demanded, +quickly.</p> + +<p>“To walk a little way.” Burr turned to Parson Fair. +“I beg you not to feel that you must deal severely with your +daughter for this,” he said, “for she does not deserve +it. She was justified in asking what she did, and in feeling distrust +that I did not answer.”</p> + +<p>“If a wife's faith cannot survive her husband's silence, +then is she no true spouse, and 'twas the part of a man not to +answer,” said this Parson Fair, who had all his life followed +in most roads the lead of his womankind, and not known it, so much +state had he been allowed in his captivity.</p> + +<p>“She was justified,” said Burr, “and I beg you, +sir, not to visit any displeasure upon her. I have not at any time +been worthy of her, although God knows had she not cast me off, and +did not this last, with what I remember now of her manner for the +last few weeks, make me sure that her heart is no longer mine, I +would have lived my life for her, as best I could; and will now, +should she say the word.”</p> + +<p>With that, Burr Gordon thrust on his wedding-hat, and was out of +the study and out of the south door of the house.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXV</h4> + +<p>In the yard was drawn up in state, behind the five white horses, +the grand old Gordon coach, which had not been used before since the +death of Lot's father. Lot had insisted upon furnishing the coach and +the horses for his cousin's wedding. The man who stood by the horses' +heads looked up at Burr in a dazed way when he came out of the house +and spoke to him.</p> + +<p>“When my mother is ready you can take her home, +Silas,” said Burr. “Then drive over to my cousin's, and +put up the coach and the horses.”</p> + +<p>The man gasped and looked at him. “Do you hear what I +say?” said Burr, shortly.</p> + +<p>The man gave an affirmative grunt, and strove to speak, but Burr +cut him short. “Look out for that bad place in the road, before +you get to the bridge,” he said, and went on out of the yard. +The road was suddenly full of departing wedding-guests, fluttering +along with shrill clatter of persistently individual notes, like a +flock of birds.</p> + +<p>Burr, out of the yard, passed along through their midst with a +hasty yet dignified pace. He said to himself that he would not seem +to be running away. He looked neither to the right nor left, except +to avoid collisions with silken and muslin petticoats, yet he was +conscious of the hush of voices as he passed, and knew that they all +recognized him in the broad moonlight.</p> + +<p>When he reached the lane which led across-lots to the old place, +he plunged into it by a sudden impulse. He went half-way down its +leafy tunnel; then he stopped and sat down on a great stone which had +fallen off the bordering wall.</p> + +<p>Great spiritual as well as great physical catastrophes stun for a +while, and there is after both a coming to one's self and an +examining one's faculties, as well as one's bones, to see if they be +still in working order. Burr Gordon, sitting there on his stone of +meditation, in the moonlit dapple of the lane, came slowly to a full +realization of himself in his change of state, and strove to make +sure what power of action he had left under these new conditions.</p> + +<p>His first thought was a cowardly one—that he would sell out, +or rather give up his estate to his cousin, take his mother, and turn +his back upon the village altogether. He knew what he had to expect. +He tasted well in advance the miserable and half ludicrous shame of a +man who has been openly jilted by a woman. He tasted, too, the +covertly whispered suspicion which had perhaps never quite departed, +and which now was surely raised to new life by Dorothy's loud cries +of accusation. He knew that he was utterly defenceless under both +shame and suspicion, being fettered fast by his own tardy but stern +sense of duty and loyalty. It seemed to him at first that he would be +crippled beyond cure in his whole life if he should stay where he +was; and then he felt the spring of the fighting instinct within him, +and said proudly to himself that he would turn his back upon nothing. +He would brave it all.</p> + +<p>There was a light wind, and now and then the young trees in the +lane were driven into a soft tumult of whispering leaves. Burr did +not notice when into this voice of the wind and this noise as of a +crowd of softly scurrying ghosts there came a crisp rustle of muslin +and a quick footstep up the lane. He only looked up when Madelon +Hautville stopped before him and looked at him with incredulous +alarm, as if she could not believe the evidence of her own eyes.</p> + +<p>Dressed like a bride herself was Madelon Hautville, in a sheer +white gown, which she had fashioned for herself out of an old crape +shawl which had belonged to her mother, and cunningly wrought with +great garlands of red flowers. She was going to Burr Gordon's +wedding, not knowing the lateness of the hour; for her brother +Richard had played a trick upon her, and set back the clock two +hours, when to his great wrath she would not stay at home. The others +were half in favor of her going, thinking that it showed her pride; +but Richard was sorely set against it, and watched his chance, and +slipped back the hands of the clock that she should be too late to +see the wedding of the man who had forsaken her.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at Burr, and he at her, and neither spoke. Then, +when she saw surely who it was, she cried out half in wonder and half +chidingly, as if she had been his mother reproaching him for his +tardiness: “What are you doing here, Burr Gordon? Do you know +'tis nearly eight o'clock, and time for your wedding?”</p> + +<p>“'Tis nearly ten,” said Burr, “and there is no +wedding.”</p> + +<p>“Nearly ten?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“But 'twas not eight by our clock.”</p> + +<p>Burr took out the great gold timepiece which had belonged to his +father, and held it towards her, and she saw the face plainly in the +moonlight.</p> + +<p>“What does this mean?” she said; and then she cried, +half shrinking away from him, “Are you married then? Where is +she?”</p> + +<p>“Dorothy Fair is at home in her chamber, and I am not +married, and never shall be.”</p> + +<p>“Why—what does this mean, Burr Gordon?”</p> + +<p>“She will not have me, and—no blame to her.”</p> + +<p>“Will not have you, and the people there, and the hour set! +Will not have you? Burr, she shall have you! I promise you she shall. +I will go talk to her. She is a child, and she does not know—I +can make her listen. She shall have you, Burr. I will go this minute, +and talk to her, and do you come after me.”</p> + +<p>Madelon gave a forward bound, like a deer, but Burr sprang up and +caught her by the arm. “Why do you stop me, Burr Gordon?” +she cried, trying to wrest her arm away.</p> + +<p>“Do you think I have no manhood left, Madelon Hautville, +that I will let you, <em>you</em> beg a woman who does not love me to +marry me?”</p> + +<p>“She does love you, she shall love you!”</p> + +<p>“I tell you she does not!” Burr spoke with a +bitterness which might well have come from slighted love, and, +indeed, so complex and contradictory are the workings of the mind of +a man, and so strong is the bent when once set in one direction, that +not loving Dorothy Fair, and loving this other woman with his whole +heart, he yet felt for the moment that he would rather his marriage +had taken place and he were not free. His freedom, which he knew was +a shame to welcome, galled him for the time worse than a chain, and +he felt more injured than if he had loved this girl who had jilted +him; for something which was more precious to him than love had been +slighted and made for naught.</p> + +<p>“She does—you are mad, Burr Gordon! She was all ready +to marry you. She came to me to help on her wedding-clothes. She was +all smiling and pleased. How could she be pleased over her +wedding-clothes if she did not love you? She does, Burr! She is a +child—I can talk to her. I will make her. Let me go, Burr! You +wait here, and not fret. Oh, how pale you look! I tell you, you shall +have her, Burr!”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, Madelon, she does not love me, and I will not +have you go.”</p> + +<p>Madelon stood looking at him, her face all at once changing +curiously as if from some revelation from within. She remembered +suddenly that old scene with Eugene, and a suspicion seized her. +“There's somebody else!” she cried out, fiercely. +“There's no truth in her. If she thinks—she shall +not—nor he—I will not have it so!”</p> + +<p>“For God's sake, Madelon, don't!” said Burr, not +fairly comprehending what she said. He sat down again upon the stone, +and leaned his head upon his hands. In truth he felt dazed and +helpless, as if he had reached suddenly the mouth of many roads and +knew not which to take. The intricacy of the situation was fairly +paralyzing to an order of mind like his, which was wont to grasp, +though shrewdly enough, only the straight course of cause and effect. +He revolved dizzily in his mind the fact that he could not tell +Madelon the reason which Dorothy had given for her rejection of him, +and the conviction was fast gaining upon him that it was not the true +and only reason. He held fiercely to his loyalty to Madelon, and his +shammed loyalty to Dorothy, and his slipping clutch of loyalty to +himself, and knew not what to say nor what course to take.</p> + +<p>Madelon, as he settled back upon the stone and bowed his head, +made towards him one of those motions which the body has kept intact +from the primitive order of things, when it was free to obey Love; +then she stood back and looked at him a moment, while indignation and +that compassion which is the very holiness of love swelled high +within her. Then suddenly she leaned forward against him in her white +robes, with the soft impetus of a white flowering tree driven by the +wind, and put her arms around him, and drew his unhappy head against +her bosom, and stroked his hair, and poured out in broken words her +wrath against Dorothy Fair, and her pity for him. And all this she +did in utter self-despite and forgetfulness, not caring if he should +discover how great her love for him still was, believing fully that +his whole heart had belonged to the other girl, and was breaking for +her, and arguing thence no good for herself.</p> + +<p>“She shall never marry him, that I swear to you, +Burr,” she cried, passionately, “and in time she may turn +to you again; there is no faith in her.”</p> + +<p>Burr listened a while bewildered, not fully knowing nor asking +what she meant, letting his head rest against her bosom, as if he +were a child whom she comforted.</p> + +<p>“Burr, you shall have her, you shall have her yet!” +she said, over and over, as if Dorothy were a sweetmeat for which he +longed, until at last a great shame and resolution seemed to go over +him like a wave, and he put her away and rose up.</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” he said, “you don't know. Listen. You +will scorn me after this—you will never look at me again, but +listen: Dorothy must never know, for all the slight of this last must +come from her and not from me, since she is a woman and I a man; but +you shall know the whole truth. I never loved Dorothy Fair, Madelon, +not as I love you, as God is my witness. She was pretty to look at, +and I liked—but you cannot understand the weakness of a man +that makes him ashamed of himself. I left you, and—I +went—courting her because she was Parson Fair's only daughter, +and I was poor, and that was not all the reason. I liked her pretty +face and her pretty ways well enough, but all the time it was you and +you alone in my heart; and, knowing that, I left you, though I was a +man. I turned Judas to my own self, and denied and would have sold +the best that was in me. Now you know the truth, Madelon +Hautville.”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him. Her lips parted, as if her breath came +hard.</p> + +<p>Burr made as if to pass on without another word, but she held out +her hand to stop him, though she did not touch him.</p> + +<p>“Stop, Burr,” she said, with a strange, almost +oratorical manner, that he had never seen in her before. It was +almost as if she mounted before his eyes a platform of her own love +and higher purposes. “Listen to me,” she said. +“That night when I was in such terrible anger with you that for +a second I would have killed you, I put it out of your power forever +to do anything that could turn me against you again. I broke my own +spirit that night, Burr. The wrong I would have done you outweighs +all you ever have done or ever can do me. There is no wrong in this +world that you can do me, if I will not take it so; and as for the +wrong you may have done yourself—that only makes me more +faithful to you, Burr.”</p> + +<p>Burr stood looking at her, speechless. It was to him as if he saw +the true inner self of the girl, which he had dimly known by +half-revealings but had never truly seen before. For a minute it was +not Madelon Hautville in flesh and blood who stood before him, but +the ghost of her, made evident by her love for him; and his very +heart seemed to melt within him with shame and wonder and worship. +“Oh, Madelon!” he gasped out, at length.</p> + +<p>But Madelon turned away then. “You must go home now,” +said she, “and I must. Good-night, Burr.”</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” said Burr, as if he repeated it at her +bidding.</p> + +<p>Then they passed without touching each other. Madelon went home +down the lane, across the fields, and Burr went out in the silent +street, whence all the wedding-guests had departed, and homeward +also.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVI</h4> + +<p>In this little Vermont village, lying among peacefully sloping +hills, away from boisterous river-courses, there was small chance of +those physical convulsions which sometimes disturb the quiet of +generations. The roar of a spring freshet never smote the ears of the +dwellers therein, and the winters passed with no danger of +avalanches. From its sheltered situation destructive storms seldom +launched themselves upon it; the oldest inhabitant could remember +little injury from lightning or hail or wind.</p> + +<p>However, there is no village in this world so sheltered in +situation that it is not exposed to the full brunt of the great +forces of human passion, when they lash themselves at times into the +fury of storm. It was here in this little village of Ware Centre, +which could never know flood or volcanic fire, as if a sort of +spiritual whirlpool had appeared suddenly in its midst. The thoughts +of all the people, lying down upon their pillows, or rising for their +daily tasks, centred upon it, and it was as if the minds of all were +prone upon the edge of it, gazing curiously into the vortex.</p> + +<p>The Sunday after Burr Gordon's disastrous wedding-day the faces of +all the people on their way to meeting wore the same expression, in +different degrees of intensity. One emotion of strained curiosity and +wonder made one family of the whole village. The people thought and +spoke of only one subject; they asked each other one +question—“Will any of them be at meeting?” The +Unitarian church was nearly deserted that Sunday, for Parson Fair's +former parishioners returned to their old gathering place, under +stronger pressure, for the time, than religious tenets.</p> + +<p>It was a burning day for May—as hot as midsummer. The +flowers were blossoming visibly under the eyes of the people, but +they did not notice. They flocked into the meeting-house and looked +about them, all with the same expression in their eyes.</p> + +<p>When Burr Gordon and his mother entered, a thrill seemed to pass +through the whole congregation. Nobody had thought they would come. +Mrs. Gordon, gliding with even pace, softly murmurous in her Sunday +silk, followed her son, who walked with brave front, although he was +undeniably pale, up the aisle to their pew. He stood about to let his +mother enter, meeting the eyes of the people as he did so; then sat +down himself, and a long glance and a long nudge of shoulders passed +over the meeting-house. Burr and his mother both knew it, but she sat +in undisturbed serenity of pallor, and he stirred not a muscle, +though a red spot blazed out on each cheek.</p> + +<p>Madelon Hautville sat in the singing seats, but he never looked at +her nor she at him. There were curious eyes upon her also, for people +wondered if Burr would turn to her now Dorothy Fair had jilted him; +but she did not know it. She heeded nobody but Burr, though she did +not look at him, and when she stood up in the midst of her brothers +and sang, she sang neither to the Lord nor to the people, but to this +one weak and humiliated man whom she loved. The people thought that +she had never sung so before, recognizing, though ignorantly, that +she struck that great chord of the heart whose capability of sound +was in them also. For the time she stood before and led all the +actors in that small drama of human life which was on the village +stage, and in which she took involuntary part; and the audience saw +and heard nobody but her.</p> + +<p>Burr, stiff as a soldier, at the end of his pew, felt his heart +leap to hope and resolve through the sound of this woman's voice in +the old orthodox hymns, and laid hold unknowingly, by means of it, of +the love and force which are at the roots of things for the +strengthening of the world. With weak and false starts and tardy +retrogrades he had woven around his feet a labyrinth of crossing +paths of life, but now, of a sudden, he saw clearly his way out. He +trampled down the scruples which hampered and blinded him like thorns +and had their roots in a false pride of honor, and recognized that +divine call of love to worship which simplifies all perplexities. He +would take that girl singing yonder for is wife, if she were indeed +so generous-minded after all, not now, but later, when there could be +no possibility of slight to Dorothy Fair. His honest work in the +world he would do, were it in the ploughshares or the wayside +ditches, with no striving for aggrandizement through untoward ways, +and so would he humbly attain the full dignity of his being.</p> + +<p>When Madelon Hautville stopped singing not one in the +meeting-house had seen Burr Gordon stir, but the soul in him had +surely turned and faced about with a great rending as of swathing +wills that bound it.</p> + +<p>Parson Fair preached that morning. Great had been the speculation +as to whether he would or not. When he stood up in his pulpit and +faced the crowded pews and the steely glances of curious eyes through +the shifting flutter of fans, he was as austerely composed as ever; +but a buzzing whisper went through the audience like a veritable bee +of gossip. “He looks dreadful,” they hissed in each +other's ears, with nudges and nods.</p> + +<p>All the principal participants in the village commotion were there +except Lot Gordon and Dorothy Fair. Dorothy had not come, in spite of +her father's stern commands, and sterner they had been than any +commands of his to his beloved child before. Dorothy had cowered +before her father, in utter misery and trepidation, after the company +had left that wedding-night, but yielded she had not—only +fallen ill again of that light fever which so easily beset her under +stress of mind.</p> + +<p>That Sunday morning, striving to rise and go to meeting as her +father said, and being in truth willing enough, since she had a +terrified longing to see Eugene Hautville in the choir and ascertain +if he were angry or glad, she fell back weak and dizzy on her +pillows, and the doctor was called. Dorothy's fever ran lightly, as +all ailments of hers, whether mental or physical, were wont to do; +and yet she had a delicacy of organization which caused her to be +shaken sorely by slight causes. A butterfly may not have the capacity +for despair, but the touch of a finger can crush it; and had it more +capacity, there would be no butterflies.</p> + +<p>It was a full month before Dorothy was able to go out of doors, +and all that time the gossips were cheated out of the sight of her, +and her father was constrained to treat her with a sort of +conscience-stricken tenderness, in spite of her grave fault. Her +mother had never risen from a fever which seemed akin to this; and +Dorothy, in spite of his stern Puritan creed, was yet dearer to him +than that abstraction of her which he deemed her soul.</p> + +<p>Looking at the girl, flushed softly with fever, her blue eyes +shining like jewels, as she lay in her white nest, he knew that he +loved her life more fiercely than he judged her sins. He would turn +his back upon her and go out of her chamber, his black height bowed +like a penitent, and down to his study, and wrestle there upon his +knees for hours with that earthly and natural love which he accounted +as of the Tempter, yet might after all have been an angel, and of the +Lord. And when Dorothy came weakly down-stairs at last, with the +great black woman guarding her steps as if she were a baby, he found +not in himself the power of stern counsel and reproof which he had +decided upon when she should have left her chamber.</p> + +<p>All the neighbors knew when Dorothy Fair first stepped her foot +out of doors, and told one another suspiciously that she did not look +very sick, and that they guessed she might have come out sooner, and +gone to meeting, had she been so minded.</p> + +<p>And in truth the girl, beyond slight deflections in the curves of +her soft cheeks, and a wistful enlarging and brightening of her blue +eyes, as in thoughtful shadows, was not much changed. The first +Sunday when she appeared in the meeting-house she wore, to the +delight and scandal of the women, one of the new gowns and hats of +her bridal outfit. Dorothy Fair, in a great plumed hat of peach-blow +silk, in a pearly silk gown and pink-silk mitts, in a white-muslin +pelerine all wrought with cunning needlework, sat in the parson's +pew, and uplifted her lovely face towards her father in the pulpit, +and nobody knew how her whole mind and fancy were set, not upon the +sermon, but upon Eugene Hautville in the singing-seats behind her. +And nobody dreamed how, as she sat there, she held before her face, +as it were, a sort of mental hand-mirror, in which she could see her +head of fair curls, her peach-blow hat, and her slender white-muslin +shoulders reflected from Eugene's dark eyes. The fall of every curl +had she studied well that morning, and the folds of the muslin +pelerine over her shoulders. And when the congregation arose for the +hymns and faced about towards the singers, then did Dorothy let her +blue eyes seek, with an innocent unconsciousness, as of blue flowers, +which would have deceived the very elect, Eugene's face.</p> + +<p>But his black eyes met hers with no more fiery glances. Eugene +never even looked at her, but sang, with stern averted face, which +was paler and thinner than Dorothy's, though he had had no illness +save of the spirit. In vain Dorothy sought his eyes, with her blue +appealing ones, during every hymn; in vain once or twice during the +sermon she even cast a glance around her shoulder with a slight fling +of her curls aside, and a little shiver, as if she felt a draught. +Eugene never looked her way that she could see.</p> + +<p>When the long service was over, Dorothy, with sly, watchful eyes, +quickened her pace, and strove so to manage that she and Eugene +should emerge from the meeting-house side by side. But he was +striding far ahead, with never a backward glance, when she came out, +lifting daintily her pearly skirts. Burr was near her, but him she +never thought of, even to avoid, and his mother's stately aside +movement was not even seen by her. She courtesied prettily to those +who met her face to face, from force of habit, and went on thinking +of no one but Eugene.</p> + +<p>Again, in the afternoon, Dorothy went to meeting, though her +pulses began to beat, with a slight return of the fever, and again +she strove with her cunning maiden wiles to attract this obdurate +Eugene, and again in vain. That night Dorothy lay and wept awhile +before she fell asleep, and dreamed that she and Eugene were +a-walking in the lane and that he kissed her. And when she awoke, +blushing in the darkness, she resolved that she would go a-walking in +the lane on every pleasant day, in the hope that the dream might come +true.</p> + +<p>And Mistress Dorothy Fair, with many eyes in the neighbors' +windows watching, went pacing slowly, for her delicate limbs as yet +did not bear her strongly, day after day down the road and into the +lane, and, with frequent rests upon wayside stones, to the farther +end of it. And yet she did not meet Eugene therein, and her dream did +not come true.</p> + +<p>But it happened at last, about the middle of the month of June, +when the great red and white roses in the dooryards were in such full +bloom that in another day they would be past it and fall, that +Dorothy and Eugene met in the lane; for there is room enough in time +for most dreams to come true, and for the others there is +eternity.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Dorothy had gone forth as usual, but she said to +herself that he would not come; and half-way down the lane she ceased +peering into the green distances for him, and sat herself down on a +stone, and leaned back against the trunk of a young maple, and shut +her eyes wearily, and told herself in a sort of sad penitence that +she would look no more for him, for he would not come.</p> + +<p>The grass in the lane was grown long now, with a pink mist over +the top of it; the trees at the sides leaned together heavy with +foliage, and the bordering walls were all hidden under bushes and +vines. Everywhere on bush and vine were spikes and corymbs of lusty +blossoms. Birds were calling to their mates and their young; the +locusts were shrilling out of depths of sunlight. Dorothy, in the +midst of this uncontrolled passion of summer, was herself in utter +tune and harmony with it. She was just as sweet and gracefully +courtesying among her sisters as any flower among the host of the +field; and she had silently and inconsequently, like the flower, her +own little lust of life and bloom which none could overcome, and +against which she could know no religion. This Dorothy, meekly +leaning her slender shoulders against the maple-tree, with her blue +eyes closed, and her little hands folded in her lap, could no more +develop into aught towards which she herself inclined not than a +daisy plant out in the field could grow a clover blossom. Moreover +her heart, which had after all enough of the sweetness of love in it, +opened or shut like the cup of a sensitive plant, with seemingly no +volition of hers; therefore was she in a manner innocently helpless +and docile before her own emotions and her own destiny.</p> + +<p>She sat still a few minutes and kept her eyes closed. Then she +thought she heard a stir down the lane, but she would not open her +eyes to look, so sadly and impatiently sure was she that he would not +come. Even when she knew there was a footstep drawing near she would +not look. She kept her eyes closed, and made as if she were asleep; +and some one passed her, and she would not look, so sure was she that +it was not Eugene.</p> + +<p>But that afternoon Eugene Hautville, who had gone all this time +the long way to the village, felt his own instincts, or the natural +towardness of his heart, too strong for him. Often, watching from a +distance across the fields, he had seen a pale flutter of skirts in +the lane, and knew well enough that Dorothy was there, and had turned +back; but this time he walked on. When he came to Dorothy he cast one +glance at her, then set his face sternly and kept on, with his heart +pulling him back at every step. Dorothy did not open her eyes until +he had fairly passed her, and then she looked and saw him going away +from her without a word. Then she gave a little cry that no one could +have interpreted with any written language. She called not Eugene by +his name; she said no word; but her heart gave that ancient cry for +its lover which was before all speech; and that human love-call +drowned out suddenly all the others.</p> + +<p>But when Eugene stopped and turned, Dorothy blushed so before his +eyes that her very neck and arms glowed pink through her lace tucker +and sleeves. She shrank away, twisting herself and hiding her face, +so that he could see naught of her but the flow of her muslin skirts +and her curling fair locks.</p> + +<p>Eugene stood a minute looking at her. His dark face was as red as +Dorothy's. He made a motion towards her, then drew back and held up +his head resolutely.</p> + +<p>“It is a pleasant day,” he said, as if they were +exchanging the everyday courtesies of life; and then when she made no +reply, he added that he hoped she was quite recovered from her +sickness.</p> + +<p>And then he was pressing on again, white in the face now and +wrestling fiercely with himself that he might, as it were, pass his +own heart which stood in the way; but Dorothy rose up, with a sob, +and pressed before him, touching his arm with her slender one in her +lace sleeve, and shaking out like any flower the rose and lavender +scent in her garments.</p> + +<p>“I want to speak to you,” she said, and strove in vain +to command her voice.</p> + +<p>Eugene bowed and tried to smile, and waited, and looked above her +head, through the tree branches into the field.</p> + +<p>“I want to know if—you are angry with me +because—I would not—marry Burr,” said Dorothy, +catching her breath between her words.</p> + +<p>“I told you that you had no reason—that he was not +guilty,” Eugene said, with a kind of stern doggedness; and +still he did not look at her.</p> + +<p>“I could not marry—him,” Dorothy panted, +softly.</p> + +<p>“I told you you had no reason,” Eugene said again, as +if he were saying a lesson that he had taught himself.</p> + +<p>“Are you angry—with me because I could not marry +him?” Dorothy asked, with her soft persistency in her own line +of thought, and not his.</p> + +<p>Then Eugene in desperation looked down at her, and saw her face +worn into sweet wistfulness by her illness, her dilated eyes and lips +parted and quivering into sobs, like a baby's.</p> + +<p>“I am not angry, but I encourage no woman to be false to her +betrothal vows,” he said, and strove to make his voice hard; +but Dorothy bent her head, and the sobs came, and he took her in his +arms.</p> + +<p>“Are you angry with me?” Dorothy sobbed, piteously, +against his breast.</p> + +<p>“No, not with you, but myself,” said Eugene. “It +is all with myself. I will take the blame of it all, sweet,” +and he smoothed her hair and kissed her and held her close and tried +to comfort her; and it seemed to him that he could indeed take all +the blame of her inconstancy and distrust, and could even bear his +self-reproach for her sake, so much he loved her.</p> + +<p>“I would not have married Burr—even if—he had +told me—he was innocent,” Dorothy said, after a while. +She was hushing her sobs, and her very soul was smiling within her +for joy as Eugene's fond whispers reached her ears.</p> + +<p>“Why?” said Eugene.</p> + +<p>“Because—you came first—when you looked at me in +the meeting-house,” Dorothy whispered back. Then she suddenly +lifted her face a little, and looked up at him, with one soft flushed +cheek crushed against his breast, and Eugene bent his face down to +hers. They stood so, and for a minute had, indeed, the whole world to +their two selves, for love as well as death has the power of +annihilation; and then there was a stir in the lane, a crisp rustle +of petticoats and a hiss of whispering voices; and they started and +fell apart. There in the lane before them, their eyes as keen as +foxes, with the scent of curiosity and gossip, their cheeks red with +the shame of it, and their lips forming into apologetic and terrified +smiles, stood Margaret Bean and two others—the tavern-keeper's +wife and the wife of the man who kept the village store.</p> + +<p>For a second the three women fairly cowered beneath Eugene +Hautville's eyes, and Margaret Bean began to stammer as if her old +tongue were palsied. Then Eugene collected himself, made them one of +his courtly bows, turned to Dorothy with another, offered her his +arm, and walked away with her out of the lane, before the eyes of the +prying gossips.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVII</h4> + +<p>It was four o'clock that summer afternoon when the three +women—Margaret Bean, the tavern-keeper's wife, and the +storekeeper's wife—who had followed Dorothy and Eugene into the +lane to pry upon them set forth to communicate by word of mouth the +scandalous proceedings they had witnessed; and long before midnight +all the village knew. The women crept cautiously at a good distance +behind Dorothy and Eugene out of the lane, and watched, with +incredulous eyes turning to each other for confirmation, the pair +walk into Parson Fair's house together. Then they could do no more, +since their ears were not long enough, and each went her way to tell +what she had seen.</p> + +<p>All the neighbors knew when Eugene Hautville left Parson Fair's +house that afternoon, but their knowledge stopped there. Nobody ever +discovered just what was said within those four walls when +Dorothy—who, soft plumaged though she was, had flown in the +faces of all her decorous feminine antecedents and her goodly +teaching—confronted her father with her new lover at her +side.</p> + +<p>It was safe enough to assume, for one who knew her and them well, +that the two men did finally turn and protect her and shelter her +each against himself, and his own despite, as well as one another. +After that Eugene Hautville was seen every Sunday night and twice in +the week going into Parson Fair's house, and the candles burned late +in the north parlor.</p> + +<p>The banns were published in a month's time. Some accounted it +unseemly haste, after the other banns which had come to naught, and +some said 'twas better so, and they blamed not Parson Fair for +placing such a flighty and jilting maid safe within the pale of +wedlock—and they guessed he was thankful enough to find a +husband for her, even if 'twas one of the Hautvilles.</p> + +<p>However, Eugene was held in somewhat more of esteem than the +others, since he had in his own right a snug little sum in bank which +had come to him from an uncle whose name he bore. When it was known +that Eugene had bought the old Squire Damon place, a goodly house +with a box-bordered front walk, and a pillared front door, and would +take his bride home to it, public favor became quite strong for him. +Folk opined that he would, even if he was a Hautville, make full as +good a husband as Burr, and that Dorothy Fair would have the best of +the bargain all around. While many held Dorothy in slight esteem for +her instability and delicacy, and thought she was no desirable +helpmeet for any man, some were of the opinion that she had shown +praiseworthy judgment and shrewdness in jilting Burr for Eugene.</p> + +<p>Dorothy this time made small show of her wedding, and was married +in her father's study with only the necessary witnesses and no +guests. Eugene Hautville had chafed. Dorothy also, with her feminine +desire for all minor details of happiness, was aggrieved that she +could never now appear before the public gaze in all the splendor of +her wedding-gear. But Parson Fair stood firm for once, and would have +it so.</p> + +<p>All the watchful neighbors saw was, after nightfall and moonrise, +Parson Fair's door open, and the bride and groom appear for a second +in a golden shaft of light which flashed into gloom at the closing of +the door, and left there two shadows, as if the story of their life +and love had already been told and passed into history. And then the +neighbors saw them move up the road with long vanishing flutters of +the bride's white draperies, and the great black woman, steadying a +basket against her hip, in their wake, following her mistress like a +faithful dog, with perhaps the most unselfish love of all.</p> + +<p>The black woman favored Eugene more than she had ever favored +Burr, perhaps because she was a true slave of love, and leaned with +the secret leanings of her mistress's heart against all words of +mouth, obeying her commands with a fuller understanding of them than +Dorothy herself.</p> + +<p>When this new lover came a-courting, the African woman had always +greeted him at the door with that wide, sudden smile of hers, at once +simple, like a child's, and wild, like the grin of an animal; and her +voice, in her thick jargon, was nearly as softly rich to him as to +Dorothy. Moreover she kept no longer jealous watch at the door of the +room where the lovers sat, and was fond of treating the young man +with little cakes which she made with honey, whose like was to be +eaten nowhere else in the village.</p> + +<p>After Dorothy and Eugene were wedded they faded into comparative +insignificance in the thoughts of the villagers, which were then +centred upon Burr Gordon and Madelon. The curtain went down upon +Eugene and his bride as upon any pair of wedded lovers in his +Shakespeare book.</p> + +<p>Burr was in exceedingly ill repute, but he did not himself know +it. Many of his old friends treated him coolly, but he attributed +that to the embarrassed sympathy and constraint which they naturally +felt towards him in his position. He thought they avoided him because +they knew well that he would suspect even friendliness lest it +contain a pity which would hurt his pride; and he thanked them for +it. But the truth was, that outcry of Dorothy's against him on the +wedding-night had lashed up into a hurricane all the suspicions which +Lot's avowal had stilled. They did away easily enough with the force +of Lot's statement, for there are many theories to furnish skin-fits +for every difficulty, if one searches in the infinity of +possibilities.</p> + +<p>Lot's true reason none fathomed, for it was beyond their +sounding-lines of selfish curiosity; but they found another which +seemed to meet the needs of the case as well.</p> + +<p>Lot, they said, had bargained with Burr to give up all claim to +Madelon, and he would set him free by confessing an attempt at +suicide. Margaret Bean, it was reported, had seen the letter which +Lot had written to Burr in prison. When Madelon, who, half crazed by +anxiety about her lover, had wrongfully accused herself to save him, +had seen him turn to her rival and scorn her after his release, she +had accepted Lot in a rage of pride and jealousy, as he had planned +for her to do. The breaking off of the marriage betwixt her and Lot +they mostly attributed to the simple cause he had mentioned—his +failing health—though some thought that he had hesitated about +marrying into the Hautville family when it came to it.</p> + +<p>Suspicion had been for a time somewhat hushed against Madelon, the +more so that she had been seen, since Dorothy had jilted Burr, to +pass him with scarcely a nod, and was popularly supposed to hold an +Indian grudge against him, and to be still anxious to wed his cousin +Lot.</p> + +<p>However, the tide soon turned again. On the Sunday after the banns +between Dorothy and Eugene had been published, Burr had been seen to +walk home openly with Madelon from evening meeting; and it was soon +known that he was courting her regularly.</p> + +<p>Then darker whispers were circulated. People said now that they +were accomplices in attempted crime. That black atmosphere of +suspicion and hatred, which gathers nowhere more easily than in a New +England town, was thick around Burr and Madelon. They breathed, +though as yet it was in less degree, the same noxious air as did the +persecuted Quakers and witches of bygone times. The gases which lie +at the bottom of human souls, which gossip and suspicious +imaginations upstir, are deadlier than those at the bottoms of old +wells. Still Madelon and Burr knew nothing of it, nor Burr's mother, +nor Lot, nor any of the Hautville men. The attitude of Madelon's +father and brothers towards herself and Burr had done much to +strengthen suspicion. High voices and strange remarks had been +overheard by folk strolling casually, of a pleasant evening, past the +Hautville house.</p> + +<p>In truth, at first old David Hautville and all his sons except +Eugene had risen against Burr and Madelon, all their pride in arms +that she should return to this man who had once forsaken her for +another. But later they had yielded, for their pride was undermined +by their own gloomy convictions as to Madelon, which they confided +not to one another. However, the boy Richard still greeted Burr +surlily, with a fierce black flash under frowning brows, and scarcely +spoke to Madelon at all until the day before her marriage. That was +set some two months after Dorothy's.</p> + +<p>Burr and Madelon, during the days of their betrothal, were as +closely beset by spies on every hand as a party of Madelon's old +kindred might have been, encamped in a wooded country, where every +bush veiled savage eyes and every tree stood in front of a foeman, +but they did not know it. Folk knew when Mrs. Gordon went to visit +her son's betrothed, though 'twas on a dark evening. They knew what +she wore, and how long she stayed. They knew when Madelon returned +her visit; they knew, to remember, in many cases, more details of +their daily lives than Burr and Madelon themselves.</p> + +<p>Madelon had few wedding preparations to make. The wedding-garments +which she had stitched with sorrow for her marriage with Lot would +serve her now. She employed her time in increasing still further the +household stores of linen for her father's and brothers' use, when +she should be gone, and in making a great stock of sweet-sauce, +jelly, and cordials from the fruits and berries of the season.</p> + +<p>One afternoon in late summer, when the high blackberries were +ripe, Madelon set forth with a great basket on her arm. A fine +cordial, good for many ills, she knew how to make from the berries, +and had planned to brew a goodly quantity this year. She went down +the road a way, then over some bars, with her hands on the highest +and a spring like a willow branch set free, across a pasture where +some red cows were grazing, then over another set of bars, into a +rough and shaggy land sloping gradually into a hill. Here the high +blackberries grew in great thorny thickets, and Madelon pressed among +them warily and began picking. She had not picked long—indeed +the bottom of her basket was not covered—when she heard a +rustle in the bushes behind her and looked over her shoulder +hurriedly, and there was Lot Gordon.</p> + +<p>Lot came forward from a cluster of young firs, parting the rank +undergrowth with the careless wonted movement of one who steers his +way among his own household goods. Well used to all the wild disorder +of out-doors was Lot Gordon, and could have picked his way of a dark +night among the stones and bushes and trees of many a pasture and +woodland. Moreover, Lot, uprising from the great nest which he had +hollowed out for himself from a sweet fern growth under the balsam +firs, exhaling their fragrant breath of healing, and coming into +sight, made better show than he had ever done in his own book-walled +study.</p> + +<p>Here, where the minds of other men swerved him and incited him +not, where only Nature herself held him in leading-strings with +unsearchable might or was laid bare before his daring eyes and many a +secret discovered, Lot Gordon gained his best grace of home. The +balsam firs framed him with more truth than the door of his own +dwelling. To Madelon, as he came out from them, he looked more a man +than he had ever done; for all unconsciously to her mind of strong +and simple bent, he had seemed at times scarce a man but rather some +strange character from a book, which had gotten life through too +strong imagining.</p> + +<p>Moreover to-day his likeness to Burr came out strongly. Madelon +saw the cant of his head and swing of his shoulders, with a half +sense of shame that he was not Burr, and yet with a sudden +understanding of him that she had never felt before. She had not seen +him since her betrothal to Burr. She thought to herself that he was +thinner, and that the red flush on his cheeks was the flush of fever +and not of the summer sun.</p> + +<p>“How do you do, Lot?” she said. Madelon's cheeks were +a splendid red; her green sunbonnet hung by its strings low on her +neck, and her head, with black hair clinging to her temples in moist +rings, was thrust out from the green tangle of vines like a flower. +When Lot did not answer at once, but stood pale and trembling, as if +an icy wind had struck him, before her, she pulled the pricking vines +loose from her dress, and came out. “How do you do, Lot?” +she said, again. Still Lot did not answer, and after a minute she +turned with impatient dignity as if to enter her fastness again; but +then Lot spoke.</p> + +<p>“Like mankind,” he said, “'tis not well, and it +tends to death, but we were born with a lash at our backs to do +it.”</p> + +<p>Madelon knit her brows impatiently, for this was his old talk, +that savored to her of ink and parchment and thoughts laid up in +studied guise, like mummies. Then she noted his poor face, and again +the look like Burr, which caused her heart to melt with the fancy of +her love in like case, and she said, with that gracious kindness +which became her well, that it was a pleasant day, and the smell of +the balsam fir was good for him.</p> + +<p>But Lot looked at her with his great eyes set in hungry hollows, +and answered her in that stilted speech which she liked not, trying +to smile his old mocking smile with his poor lips, which only +trembled like a child's when tears are coming. “There are +rivers of honey and gardens of spices, and branches dropping +balm,” said Lot, “where a man can walk but his soul +cannot follow him. His soul waits outside and strives to taste the +sweet when he swallows it, and smell the balm and the spices when he +breathes them in, but cannot; and that is only good for a man which +is good for his soul.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know what you mean,” said Madelon, +shortly.</p> + +<p>“I mean that I am outside all the good of this world, since +the one good which I crave and cannot have is the gate to all the +rest,” said Lot. Then suddenly he cried out passionately, +lifting up his face to the sky, “O God, why need it be so? Why +need a man be a bond-slave to one hunger? Why need this one woman be +the angel with the flaming sword before all the little pleasures I +used to taste and love? Why need she come between me and the breath +of the woods, and the incense of the fields, and their secrets which +were to me before my own, so I can take no more delight in +them?”</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him half in pity, half in proud resentment. +“If it is so,” she said, “it was not of my own +accord I came; you know that, Lot Gordon. I meant no harm to you, and +the harm that I did you brought upon yourself. I would not have come +here to-day if I had known you were here and that it would disturb +you.”</p> + +<p>“You could not have helped coming,” said Lot. “I +have been here since morning, and you have been here all the +while.”</p> + +<p>“Why do you talk so, Lot Gordon?” cried Madelon, +angrily, for Lot's covert meanings fretted her straightforwardness +beyond endurance. “You know that I have just come +here!”</p> + +<p>“You came here when I did,” said Lot, “when the +fields were dewy. You held up your skirts and stepped daintily. I +went ahead and you followed, high-kilted, pointing your steps among +the wet grasses like a dove. Had I looked over my shoulder I could +have seen you, but I looked not lest the power of flight might be in +you like the dove.”</p> + +<p>“I shall go away if you talk like this. I will not stay here +and listen to it; you know I was not here,” said Madelon, and +she paled a little, for she almost thought, used to his fanciful talk +though she were, that Lot had gone mad.</p> + +<p>“We walked towards the sun,” persisted Lot, “but +you were in my shadow and needed not to cast down your eyes. I saw +some red flowers, but I did not pick them for you, and I heard you +stop and break the stems as you came after. When we reached the shade +of the firs there I sat down, but I left the space there, where the +needles are smoothest and thickest, for you, and there you sat too, +all day.”</p> + +<p>“Lot Gordon!”</p> + +<p>“You need not mind, Madelon, for all day I looked not over +my shoulder once. I saw not your face, nor touched your lips, nor +your hand, nor even the fold of your dress. I harmed you not, even in +my dreams, dear.”</p> + +<p>Madelon, standing quite free of the clinging blackberry vines, +held up her dark head like an empress, and looked at him. In truth +she felt little pity for Lot Gordon then, for she liked not being +made to follow other than Burr even in a man's dreams. Still, when +she spoke it was not unkindly, for in spite of this jealousy of +herself for Burr, and in spite of her inability to understand such +worship of herself, when she was spent in worship of another, she +remembered how she had nearly taken the life of this man, and how he +had striven to shield her, though against her will, and on hard and +selfish conditions, and how he had at last sacrificed himself to set +her free.</p> + +<p>“Lot,” said she, “there must be no more of this. +I am almost your cousin's wife. You have no right.” And then +she repeated it passionately. “I say you have no right to love +me like this, if I do not love you, Lot Gordon. I will have no other +man but Burr think me at his heels. I will follow him till the day of +my death, but no other. I would only have married you to save his +life—you know that. You know I never loved you. You have no +right.”</p> + +<p>“The right of love is every man's who sets not himself +before it,” returned Lot, with sad dignity. “I will not +yield that even for love of you, Madelon; but myself shall be pushed +yet farther out of sight, I promise you, and you shall be pestered no +more, child. Go on with your berry-picking.”</p> + +<p>A great mound of rock uplifted itself like the swelling crouch of +some fossil animal among the sweet ferns and the wild scramble of +vines. Lot sank down upon it panting for breath. He leaned his head +wearily forward between his hands, his elbows resting on his +knees.</p> + +<p>Madelon looked at him hesitatingly; she opened her mouth as if to +speak, then was silent. She looked at the high vines, black with +fruit, then at the field beyond, as if half minded to go away and +leave them.</p> + +<p>Finally she fell to picking again without a word. Lot coughed +once, but he did not speak. Madelon kept glancing at him as she +picked. Compunction and pity softened more and more her fiery heart, +the more so since she felt the guilt of happiness in the face of the +woe of another upon her. Finally she said, with that fond reversion +to the little homely truths and waysides of life with which the +feminine mind strives often to comfort, that she would put up for him +a jug of her blackberry cordial, and furthermore that she hoped his +cough was better. She said it with half-constrained kindness, not +looking up from her berry-picking; but Lot lifted his head and +thanked her and said the cough was nearly cured, with eagerness to +respond to grace, like a child who has been chidden.</p> + +<p>Then he watched her with bright eyes as she picked, his breath +coming hard and quick. “Madelon!” he said, and +stopped.</p> + +<p>“What, Lot?”</p> + +<p>“You remember—the gewgaws which I—showed you, +Madelon—the feathers and ribbons and satins, and the other +things? You cared not for them then. Will you have them now, for your +wedding-gift?”</p> + +<p>“No, Lot,” said Madelon, quickly. “I thank you, +but I cannot take them; I have enough.”</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“I have enough.”</p> + +<p>“There is no need for you to tell me why,” said Lot. +“A woman like you would almost veil herself from her own eyes +for the sake of a lover, so great is her jealousy. The thoughts and +the dreams with which I bought the gewgaws profane them in your eyes +while I am alive.”</p> + +<p>“I do not need them, and I cannot take them, Lot,” +said Madelon, steadily.</p> + +<p>Lot said no more. He leaned his head upon his hands again. Madelon +could hear his panting breath. She resolved that she would go away +across the fields, down the road a piece, to another berry patch that +she knew of. Still she did not go. One of those impulses which seem +to come from authority outside one's self, or else from some hidden +springs of motion which we know not of, had seized her. She looked at +Lot and moved softly away a few steps, holding her skirts clear of +the vines. Then she paused and looked again, and was away again. Her +face was resolute and wary, as if she saw something which she feared +and loathed, and yet would brave. Then she went close to Lot, and +stood still over him a minute.</p> + +<p>“Lot,” she said.</p> + +<p>He looked up at her, wonderingly. “Are you sick, +Madelon?” he cried, and would have risen, but she motioned him +back and spoke, turning her face away the while.</p> + +<p>“Once I asked Burr to give me the kiss that I would have +killed him for,” said she, in a voice so sharpened by her +stress of spirit that it might have come out of the flames of +martyrdom. “Now I ask you to give me the kiss that I almost +took your life for.”</p> + +<p>“Madelon!”</p> + +<p>“It is all I can do to make amends,” said she. Then +she looked full at him, and did not shrink when she met his eyes, +though her face grew white before the mad longing in them.</p> + +<p>Lot stood up and leaned towards her, and she stood waiting. Then +he threw out his hands, as if he would push her back, and turned +away. “You owe me no amends,” he said, hoarsely. +“The wound that you gave me was my just desert for striving to +take what you were not willing to give.”</p> + +<p>“Your life is your life,” said she, steadily, +“and I almost took it away from you. I would do this in token +of repentance for that and whatever other harm I have done you +unwittingly.”</p> + +<p>“You owe me no amends, and I will take none,” said +Lot, again.</p> + +<p>Then he faced about towards her, and she started and looked at +him, wondering and half in awe, for suddenly the love in the heart of +the man showed itself in his face like a light, and it was almost as +if she saw, unbelieving and denying, her own transfigured image in +his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, Madelon,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye,” she returned, faintly, and looked at him +for the first time in all her life without the thought of Burr +between them.</p> + +<p>But that Lot did not know, and stood a moment gazing at her as a +man gazes at one beloved under the shadow of long parting, striving +to gain possession of somewhat to hold and cherish aside from the +conditions of the flesh. Then he said good-bye again, and went away, +with that soft winding glide of his through the underbrush which he +might have learned from the wild dwellers in the woods, and was out +of sight through the violet glooms of the firs.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXVIII</h4> + +<p>The night before Madelon was married, as if by some tacit +understanding of peace and harmony, the Hautvilles came together for +a concert in the great living-room. Not one had said to another, +“This is Madelon's last night at home, and we have been wroth +with her; let us bury the hatchet, and raise our voices with one +accord in our old songs;” but one impulse had seemed to move +them all, as one wind moves the forest trees who are kin to one +another, and they were all together at twilight, even Eugene and his +bride.</p> + +<p>Burr Gordon came also, but he and Madelon did not sit apart that +evening. The weather was cool, even for late September, and an early +frost was threatened. A great fire blazed on the hearth. Burr and +Dorothy, on the settle in the chimney-corner, listened to the +Hautville chorus, and Burr looked always at Madelon and Dorothy at +Eugene. The Hautvilles stood together before the fire, old David with +his bass-viol at his side, like the wife of his bosom; Louis holding +his violin on his shoulder, like a child, pressing his dark cheek +against it, and Eugene and Abner and Richard and Madelon uplifting +their voices in the old songs and fugues.</p> + +<p>The doors and windows were shut. Nobody heard nor saw Lot Gordon +when he crept like a fox round the house, and came under a window and +rested his chin on the sill and remained there looking at Madelon. +She wore that night a soft gown of crimson wool, which clung about +her limbs and her bosom, and showed her bare throat swelling with +song into new curves which were indeed those of music itself. Lot, as +he looked at her, saw her with the full meaning of her beauty as +never Burr could, and as she could never see herself, for there is no +looking-glass on earth like a vain love when it rises above the +slight of its own desire. Greater praise than she would ever know +again in her whole life went up for Madelon outside that window, as +she sang, but she neither knew it nor missed anything when Lot went +away.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock the concert ceased. Lot slunk away noiselessly, and +soon Eugene and Dorothy went home, and Burr, lingering for a +good-night kiss or two in the door.</p> + +<p>Madelon set bread to rise that night, and fulfilled her little +round of nightly tasks for the last time. Her father and brothers +went to bed and left her there—all but Richard. He remained in +a corner of the settle, his slim length flung out carelessly, his +head tipped back as if he were asleep; but his black eyes flashed +bright under their lids at his sister whenever she did not look at +him. Madelon said not a word until her tasks were done; then she came +and stood in front of Richard, and looked at him, frowning a little, +for her pride was stung at his treatment of her, but holding out her +hand. “Can't you bid me good-night, Richard?” said she, +and tried to smile at him with that old loving comradeship which he +had disowned.</p> + +<p>The boy maintained his sullen silence for a moment, and Madelon +waited. Then suddenly he cried, “Good-night,” with sharp +intonations, like the response of a surly dog, and sprang up and +thrust something hard into her hand, with such roughness that it hurt +her, and she started.</p> + +<p>“'Tis a wedding-present for you,” Richard said, +savagely, with averted face. “I thought the one I gave you +before would not serve for two weddings. Though there be but one +bride, there should be different gifts.”</p> + +<p>Madelon gave one look at Richard; then she opened her hand, and +there on her reddened palm lay a little gold pencil, which the boy +must have spent all his little savings to buy. Madelon held it out to +him. “Take it back,” said she; “I want no presents +with words like that to sweeten them.”</p> + +<p>Richard's clenched hand hung by his side. He shook his head +sullenly.</p> + +<p>“Take it!” said Madelon; but he made no motion to do +so.</p> + +<p>“Then I shall let it fall on the floor,” said +Madelon.</p> + +<p>“Let it,” returned Richard, and forthwith the little +gold pencil rolled on the floor under the settle, and Madelon turned +away with a white face. But before she had reached the door Richard +was at her side and his hand on her arm. “Oh, Madelon!” +he said, striving to keep the sobs back. Then Madelon turned and laid +a hand on each of his shoulders, and held him away, looking at +him.</p> + +<p>“Why did you speak to me like that?” said she; and +then, without waiting for an answer, drew the boy's head down to her +bosom, and held it there a moment, stroking his hair. “If ever +you are sick after I am gone,” said she, “I will come and +take care of you; and if you don't get good things to eat I will see +to that, too;” and then she kissed Richard's dark head, and put +him away gently, bidding him with a tender laugh “not to be a +baby,” and went over to the settle and picked up the little +gold pencil, and praised it and said she would treasure it all her +life.</p> + +<p>And then she bade Richard follow her into the best room, and +opened the carved oak chest and displayed six beautiful shirts made +of linen, which she had herself spun and woven and wrought with +finest needlework in bands and bosoms, for a parting gift to him, +because he was the nearest of all her brothers, though she must not +say so. “The others have shirts enough,” said she; +“I have seen to that, for I have meant to do my duty to you +all, but none of the others have bosoms and wristbands stitched like +these, and the linen is extra fine.”</p> + +<p>That night Richard would not go to his chamber, which he shared +with his brother Louis, lest he wake and spy his face flushed with +tears, but crept stealthily back down-stairs, and, all unbeknown to +any one, lay all night on the settle in the living-room. He slept +little, and often waked and wept in the darkness like a child rather +than one of the fiery Hautville brothers.</p> + +<p>When wrath with a beloved one is stilled in the human heart and +love takes its place, it is with a threefold increase, a great +rending of spirit, and a cruel turning of weapons against one's self. +Richard was one who would always deal with entireties, being capable +of no divisions nor subtleties of praise or blame. Whereas his anger +had been fierce against his sister that she should love and marry the +man who had flouted her, now it was turned wholly against himself for +his injustice and ill-treatment of her. He racked himself with the +memory of his surly words and looks; and those six shirts of fine +linen, with the cunning needlework in band and bosom, seemed the +veritable scriptural coals of fire on his head. Also good and simple +reasons for his sister's course came to him as he lay there and +influenced him still more. “She had it in her mind to kill him, +though 'twas the other she struck,” he said to himself; +“'tis only fit that she should make amends to him for that and +keep his house for him, and bake and brew and spin and weave for +him.” Richard in the darkness nodded his head in agreement +with his own argument, and yet he hated Burr as well as ever, and the +next morning when he saw him stand beside his sister before Parson +Fair, he clenched his slender brown hands until the sinews stood out, +and his black eyes still flashed hostility at him. Yet when he looked +at Madelon's face his own softened, and he set his mouth hard to keep +back the quiver in it. Madelon wore not the silk of green and gold in +which she had planned to be wedded to Lot; that she could not bring +her mind to do, since the old wretched dreams and imaginations seemed +to cling to the garment and desecrate it for this. She wore instead a +sober gown of a satin sheen with the rich purplish-red hue of a plum, +which set off the dark bloom of her face by suggestion rather than +contrast; but all the boy Richard noted of her costume was his little +gold pencil slung on the long gold chain around her neck.</p> + +<p>Madelon and Burr were married quite early in the morning, in the +best room of the Hautville house, and nobody outside the two families +was bidden to the wedding. After the marriage the bride tied on a +white-muslin apron and passed cake and currant wine; and the great +Hautvilles sitting in sober state around the room, Elvira Gordon in +her black satin and pearls, pretty Dorothy, and Parson Fair +partook.</p> + +<p>Then the bride went up to her chamber and put on a pelisse of +stuff like her gown, lined with canary-colored satin, and a little +cap of otter and a great muff which she had fashioned herself out of +skins which her brothers had brought home, and took over her arm, +since the day was frosty, a long tippet of otter which she could wind +round her throat, if need be, and came down all equipped for her +wedding-journey.</p> + +<p>In front of the Hautville house stood waiting a smart chaise with +a fine young horse in the shafts, and the bride and groom came out +and got in and drove away. But first, while Burr was gathering up the +reins, David Hautville's hoarse voice through the open door besought +him to wait, and presently the old man came striding forth with the +skin of a mighty bear which he had slain single-handed years ago, and +which had been his chiefest treasure next to his viol ever since, +kept beside his bed, whence no one dared remove it. He flung it up +into the chaise, and tucked it well in over his daughter's knees. +“Oh, father, I will not take your bearskin!” Madelon +cried, and the tears came into her eyes, for this touched her more +than anything; and the memory of aught that she had ever lacked in +tenderness towards them all seemed to smite her in the face.</p> + +<p>“'Tis a sharp day for the time of year, and there'll be a +frost to-night,” was all old David Hautville said, and strode +back into the house, keeping his face well turned away.</p> + +<p>The horse that Burr drove was a young animal that he had purchased +lately. It was of the stock of the Morgans, and stood with the +faithfulness of a sentinel; but when the signal to start was given +stepped out proudly as if to a battle charge, with eager tossings of +heavy mane and high flings of knees and hoofs; and yet, when fairly +on the road, never broke the swift precision of his course.</p> + +<p>“He's got a fine horse there,” Abner Hautville said, +in his emphatic bass, as he watched them out of sight; and he further +declared that for his part he would be willing to trade the roan for +him. Then the boy Richard turned upon him, with a cry that was +something between a sob and an oath: “Yes, trade off the roan +and all we've got left to him, I'll warrant ye will!” he choked +out. Then he was gone, pelting off madly across the fields, with his +bold and innocent young heart, that had as yet known no fiercer +passion than this for his sister, all aflame with grief and angry +jealousy, as of one who sees his best haled off before his eyes, and +still with awed submission to a power which he recognizes and +understands not.</p> + +<h4 align="center">Chapter XXIX</h4> + +<p>As Burr and Madelon, setting forth on their wedding-journey, drove +down the village street, they met many whom they knew; and had it not +been for their self-engrossment they could not have failed to notice +and wonder at the cold greetings they received, and the many averted +faces which greeted them not at all.</p> + +<p>Indeed, Burr did remark upon it when they met Daniel Plympton, who +nodded with a surly air and turned his fat and pleasant countenance +resolutely away, with a gesture that seemed to belie his own +identity.</p> + +<p>“What's come across Dan'l?” he said, laughing, for at +that time coldness from the outside world seemed but provocative of +amusement. Then he sang out gayly to the Morgan horse, and they flew +along the road, under the outreaching branches, red and gold and +russet, past old landmarks and houses and more familiar faces which +bore strange looks towards them, and yet surprised them not, for a +strangeness was over all the old sights and ways for them both. To +the bride and groom, riding through the village where they had been +born and bred, and whence all their earthly imaginations had sprung, +came an experience like a resurrection. They saw it all: the paths +their feet had trodden, the doors they had entered, the friends they +had known from childhood, but all seemed no longer the same, since +their own conditions of life had changed; and change in one's self is +the vital spring of change in all besides.</p> + +<p>As they rode along old associations lost their holds over them in +their new world, which was the outcome of the old, and would in its +turn wax old again. Burr looked at his own home, as he went by, as if +he had never seen it; even his memory of himself and his childhood +days was dim, and he and Madelon, glancing at Lot's windows and +having his image forced, as it were, upon their consciousness, +regarded it as they might have done an actor in some old drama of +history in which they also had taken part, but which had long since +passed off the stage.</p> + +<p>They left the house behind and were swiftly out of sight, over the +crest of a long hill with a great spread of golden maple branches +closing after them like a curtain, and neither of them dreamed in +what straits Lot Gordon lay behind his vacant windows—and all +through this love and bliss and paradise of theirs.</p> + +<p>The smart chaise and the Morgan horse had scarcely disappeared +before Margaret Bean came hurriedly out of Lot Gordon's house and +went rattling in her starched draperies towards the village; and soon +after that the doctor was seen driving thither furiously in his +tilting sulky, while windows were opened and spying heads thrust out +all along his course.</p> + +<p>An hour later everybody knew that Lot Gordon, some said by a fall +in climbing over a stone wall, some said by a severe fit of coughing, +had caused his old wound to beset him again with danger of his life. +That night, indeed, the tide of rancorous gossip swelled high. The +spirit of persecution and righteous retribution which finds easy +birth in New England villages was fast getting to itself feet and +hands and tongue and a whole body of active powers.</p> + +<p>A stormy bridal night had Burr and Madelon known had they been at +home; and had Lot Gordon died during the next three days, in which he +lay in imminent danger, there had been fleet horses on the track of +the swift Morgan, and the wedding-journey had come to a close.</p> + +<p>Yet the Hautville men heard nothing of the bitterness which was +gathering towards Madelon and Burr, for people, fearing their fierce +tempers, hesitated until the time was come to disclose it to them. +Even old Luke Basset dared not carry news to them. The tongues were +always hushed when one of them drew near; and as for Eugene, who, +having a wife, might perhaps have discovered it, he and Dorothy took +the stage coach for Boston the day after the marriage, and were +paying a visit at Dorothy's aunt's there.</p> + +<p>After three days Lot Gordon was reported to be no longer hovering +between life and death, and yet it was said on good authority, +through the doctor's wife in fact, that he might at any time, by an +injudicious step or a harder coughing-spell, end his life through the +opening of that old wound, for which they held either Madelon or +Burr, or perhaps both, accountable; and public indignation swelled +higher and higher. It was resolved that when the bridal couple +returned a constant espionage should be kept upon them, and in case +of Lot's death active measures should be taken.</p> + +<p>“We ain't goin' to have a man murdered to death in our midst +by no French and Injuns nowadays and let it slide,” proclaimed +a fiery spirit in the store one night. Then when the door opened and +Abner Hautville, dark and warlike in his carriage as any fighting +chief, appeared, the man asked ostentatiously for a “quart of +m'lasses, and not so black and gritty as the last was nuther,” +transferring the rancor in his tone to an inoffensive object with +Machiavellian policy.</p> + +<p>However, Margaret Bean's husband was in the store that night, and +heard it all. He had been sent thither for a half-pound of ginger, +and told not to linger; but linger he did, disposing his old bones +with a stiff fling upon a handy half-barrel and listening to every +word with a shrewd sense, for which no one would have given him +credit, that he could by repetition and enlargement, if necessary, +appease his wife's wrath at his delay. The workings of the human mind +towards selfish ends even in the simplest organization have an art +beyond all mechanism, and can astonish the wisest when revealed.</p> + +<p>Nobody who saw old man Bean pottering homeward that night, his +back bent with age, yet moving with a childlike shuffle, carrying his +parcel of ginger with tight clutch lest he drop it, like one whose +weariness of body must make up for feebleness of mind, dreamed what a +diplomat he was in his humble walk of life, and what an adept still +in doubles and turns and twists and dodges towards his own petty +ends.</p> + +<p>A sweeter morsel than any sugar old man Bean, overborne with a +sense of naughtiness and disobedience, like a child, carried home to +his wife to quiet her chiding tongue.</p> + +<p>Hardly had he entered the door when he heard afar the swift rattle +of her starched skirts, like a very warning note of hostility, and +cut in ahead of her reproaches with a triumphant manner.</p> + +<p>“Pretty doin's there's goin' to be,” said he; +“never was nothin' like it in this town. That's what I stayed +for. Thought ye'd orter know.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” asked Margaret Bean, staring.</p> + +<p>“Ye know what the doctor says about <em>him</em>?” +The old man jerked his head towards the door.</p> + +<p>Margaret nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well, they're goin' to have 'em both hung for murder the +minute he draws his last breath.”</p> + +<p>“Can't till they're tried,” said Margaret, with a +sniff of scorn at her husband's lack of legal knowledge.</p> + +<p>“Well, they're goin' to clap 'em into jail the minute they +git home, an' keep 'em there till they can hang 'em,” persisted +old man Bean.</p> + +<p>“They ain't.”</p> + +<p>“I tell ye they are!”</p> + +<p>Old man Bean had a cup of tea, plentifully sweetened with +molasses, made from the ginger which he had purchased, and went to +bed happy and peaceful, as one who has worked innocently and well his +small powers to his own advantage; and soon after that Lot also heard +the news which he had brought.</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean said to herself that it was her duty; and her duty, +and a great devouring thirst of curiosity, overcame her natural fear +of injuring the sick man.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon was still in bed, but propped up on pillows, with a +candle on the stand at his side, reading one of his leather-covered +books. Margaret Bean shrank back when she had delivered herself of +her news, for the flash in Lot's eyes was like lightning; and she +waited in trembling certainty as for thunder.</p> + +<p>“I tell ye 'tis a lie!” cried Lot Gordon. “Do ye +hear, 'tis a lie! Go yourself and tell them so from me. The wound has +naught to do with this. It was naught but a scratch, for I had not +courage enough to strike deep, much as I wanted to be quit of the +world and the fools in it. Go you down to the store and tell the +gossips that have no affairs of their own, and must needs pry on +their neighbors so. Dare any one of them to turn knife on his own +flesh for the first time and strike deeper! The next time I'll do +better. Tell them so! The fools! Sodom and Gomorrah, and fire from +Heaven for wickedness! Lord, why not fire from Heaven for damned +foolishness, that does more harm to the world than the shattering of +all the commandments into stone-dust!”</p> + +<p>“I felt that 'twas my duty to let you know, sir,” +stammered Margaret Bean, backing farther and farther away from +him.</p> + +<p>“Tell the fools that I say, and I'll swear to it, and so +will the doctor swear, that 'twas not the wound that has been my +ailment, but my cursed lungs; but if 'twas 'twould be naught to them, +for I struck the blow myself. I tell you that neither the one nor the +other of them struck the blow—it was I. Do you hear? It was +I!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” said Margaret Bean, trembling, her eyes +big, her white face elongated in her starched cap ruffles.</p> + +<p>“Go to bed!” said Lot, savagely, and the old woman +scuttled out, glad to be gone.</p> + +<p>Never before had Lot addressed her so. “I believe he did do +it himself,” she told her husband next morning, for she could +not wake him to intelligence that night; “he's jest ugly 'nough +to.”</p> + +<p>The next day at early dawn Lot's bell, which was kept on his stand +beside the bed, in case he should be worse in the night and need +assistance, tinkled sharply.</p> + +<p>“Send your husband after the doctor,” Lot ordered, +peremptorily, when Margaret answered it; and presently early risers +saw old man Bean advancing in a rapid shuffle towards the doctor's, +and soon the doctor himself whirled past, his back bent to the rapid +motion of his gig. The report that Lot Gordon was worse went through +the village like wildfire. A crowd collected in the store as soon as +the shutters were down; there was a knot of men before the lawyer's +office waiting for him to come; and several hot-headed young fellows +pressed into the stable and urged upon Silas Beers that he should +keep the old white racer in readiness for an emergency that day, and +also several others which, if not as fleet, had good staying +powers.</p> + +<p>When the doctor entered Lot Gordon's chamber Margaret Bean +followed, tremblingly officious, in his wake, with a bowl and spoon +in hand.</p> + +<p>“I want to see the doctor alone,” said Lot; and the +old woman retreated before his coldly imperious order. “Stay +out in the kitchen,” ordered Lot, further, “and don't +come through the entry; I shall hear you if you do.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir,” replied Margaret Bean, and obeyed, nor +dared listen at the door, as was her wont, so terrified was she lest +Lot could indeed hear and had heard in times past.</p> + +<p>The doctor, redolent of herbs and drugs, set his medicine-chest on +the floor, and advanced upon Lot, who waved him back with a +half-laugh.</p> + +<p>“Lord, let's have none of that nonsense this morning,” +he said. “Sit down; I want to talk to you.”</p> + +<p>The doctor was gray and unshaven and haggard as ever, from a +midnight vigil, the crumbs of his hasty breakfast were on his +waistcoat; his eyes were bright as steel under heavy, frowning +brows.</p> + +<p>“Are ye worse? Has it come on again?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>“No; sit down.”</p> + +<p>The doctor snatched up his medicine-chest with a surly +exclamation.</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” asked Lot.</p> + +<p>“Back to my breakfast. I'll not be called out for nothing by +you or any other man after I've been out all night. If you want a +gossip, get the parson; he's got time enough on his hands. A man +don't have to work so many hours a day saving souls as he does saving +bodies.”</p> + +<p>Lot laughed. “And neither souls nor bodies saved by either +of you, after all,” said he, “for the Lord saves the one, +if he has so ordained it; and as for the other, your nostrums only +work so long as death does not choose to come.”</p> + +<p>“Have it your own way; save your own soul and your own body, +as ye please, for all me,” said the doctor, who was adjudged +capable when crossed of being surly to a dying man; and he made for +the door.</p> + +<p>“For God's sake stop,” cried Lot, “and come back +here and listen! I did not call you for nothing. The lives and deaths +of more than one are at stake; come back here!”</p> + +<p>The doctor clamped his medicine-chest hard on the floor. “Be +quick about it, then,” said he, and sat down in a chair at +Lot's bedside.</p> + +<p>Lot fumbled under his pillow and produced a folded paper which he +handed to the doctor. “I want you to sign this,” said +he.</p> + +<p>The doctor scowled over the paper, got out his iron-bowed +spectacles, adjusted them, and read aloud:</p> + +<p>“I, Justinus Emmons, practising doctor of medicine, do +hereby declare that the death of Lot Gordon of Ware Centre will, when +it takes place, be due to phthisis, and phthisis alone, and not in +any degree, however small, to the wound inflicted by himself some +months since. And, furthermore, I declare that his death will follow +from the natural progress of the disease of phthisis, which has not +in any respect been accelerated by his self-inflicted +wound.”</p> + +<p>“You want me to sign this, do you?” said the +doctor.</p> + +<p>“I will call in Margaret Bean and her husband for +witnesses,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>“You think I am going to sign this?”</p> + +<p>“I want it in addition to the certificate of the cause of +death which you will have to make out after my decease. 'Tis an +unnecessary formality, but I would have it so,” Lot +returned.</p> + +<p>The doctor dashed the paper on the bed. “If you think I am +going to subscribe to a lie for you, or any other man, you're +mistaken,” he cried. “It was enough for me to hold my +tongue when you made that fool statement of yours that wouldn't have +deceived a man with the brains of an ox.”</p> + +<p>“My death will be due to phthisis; my left lung is almost +consumed, and you know it,” affirmed Lot.</p> + +<p>“And I tell you,” said the doctor, stoutly, +“that your death from phthisis might not have occurred for ten +years to come. Does a tree die because half its boughs are gone? When +you die, you die of that wound. The evil was greater than I thought +at the time. It takes less to kill a diseased man than a sound +one.”</p> + +<p>“Then my death will be due to my disease and not to my +wound, if it would not have killed a sound man,” cried Lot, +eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, your death will be due to that wound that +Madelon Hautville, with maybe your cousin at her back, gave +you.”</p> + +<p>Lot's face glared white at the doctor. “I gave the wound to +myself!”</p> + +<p>The doctor laughed.</p> + +<p>“I tell you, I gave the wound myself!”</p> + +<p>“Take your wound into court, and see what they +say.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I'll give any man who will stab himself in just the same +place, with the knife held in just the same way, every dollar I have +in the world.”</p> + +<p>“You can't prove it.”</p> + +<p>“I can prove it.”</p> + +<p>“I can do away with your proof,” said Lot, in a +strange voice. The doctor looked at him sharply.</p> + +<p>“Then you will not sign this paper?” Lot said, +presently.</p> + +<p>“No, I will not; and I tell you, once for all, when you die +I make out my certificate as it should be.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“By a wound from a knife or other sharp instrument, +inflicted by a person or persons unknown.”</p> + +<p>Lot's face, towards the doctor, looked as if death had already +struck it; but he spoke firmly. “How long will it be, +first?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“I don't know.”</p> + +<p>“Approximate.”</p> + +<p>“A false step may do it.”</p> + +<p>“I can lie still!”</p> + +<p>“A coughing-spell may do it.”</p> + +<p>“I will not cough!”</p> + +<p>“More than that, a thought may do it, if it stirs your heart +too much. I tell you as I should want to be told myself: your life +hangs by a thread.”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes a thread does not break,” Lot said, with a +meditative light in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“That's true enough.”</p> + +<p>“This may not.”</p> + +<p>“True enough.”</p> + +<p>“How long will you give it to last, before you sign this +paper?”</p> + +<p>“A year.”</p> + +<p>“Then you will sign this if I live a year from +to-day?”</p> + +<p>“No, I will not sign it, for you may have another stab on +New-year's day, if you seem likely to live so long,” said the +doctor, shortly; “but I will promise you not to make out your +certificate of death from this wound.”</p> + +<p>“How great a chance of life have I?” Lot asked, +hoarsely, after a minute's pause.</p> + +<p>“Small.”</p> + +<p>“Yet there is one?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>The doctor opened his chest, and began selecting some bottles.</p> + +<p>“I want no more of your nostrums,” said Lot.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said the doctor, replacing the bottles. +“I would not make out that certificate sooner than +necessary—that is all.”</p> + +<p>“Dose death and go to the root of the matter,” said +Lot. “Then you won't sign this paper?”</p> + +<p>“No,” replied the doctor, with a great emphasis of +negation.</p> + +<p>“There is one thing you will do,” said he.</p> + +<p>“What?” asked the doctor, suspiciously.</p> + +<p>“If I die within a year, to your truest belief, from any +other cause than this wound now in my side you will say +so.”</p> + +<p>“Of course I will do that,” replied the doctor, +staring at him.</p> + +<p>“And you will in such a case let this wound drop into +oblivion, you will hold your peace concerning it, ‘forever +after?’”</p> + +<p>“Of course I will.”</p> + +<p>“Swear to it?”</p> + +<p>“I swear. But what in—”</p> + +<p>Lot smiled. “Some time, when you have leisure, write a +treatise on ‘Who killed the man?’” he said, as if +to turn the subject, “and keep going back to first causes. +You'll find startling results; you may decide that 'twas your duty to +sign the paper.”</p> + +<p>“I have no time for treatises,” returned the doctor, +gruffly.</p> + +<p>“You may trace the killing back to yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I'm not afraid of it. Good-day.”</p> + +<p>“Shake hands with me, doctor,” pleaded Lot, with a +curious change of tone, “to show you bear no grudge for the +breakfast you lost.”</p> + +<p>The doctor stared a second, then went up to him with extended +hand, looking at him seriously. He thought Lot's illness had begun to +affect his mind.</p> + +<p>“Keep yourself quiet, and you may outlive the best of +us,” he said, soothingly, as if to a child or a woman, shook +Lot's lean hand kindly, repeated his good-day, and was gone.</p> + +<p>Lot waited until he heard the outer door close. Then he tinkled +his bell for Margaret Bean. “When are they coming home?” +he asked, shortly, when she stood beside him.</p> + +<p>“His mother said she was expectin' of 'em +Saturday.”</p> + +<p>“Get my clothes out of the closet, will you,” said +Lot.</p> + +<p>“You ain't a-goin' to get up?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I'm better; get the clothes.”</p> + +<p>When Margaret Bean had laid the clothes out ready for him, and was +gone, Lot laid still a moment, reflecting, with his eyes on the +ceiling. He wished to cough, but with an effort he checked it, +gasping once or twice. “Saturday,” he said, aloud. +“To-day is Wednesday—three days. Can I wait?” He +paused; then as if answering another self, he said, “No; I +could die a thousand deaths in that time. I can't wait.”</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon got up, moving by inches, with infinite care and pains, +dressed himself, crawled out of his bedroom into his library, which +was adjoining, and sat down at his desk. Margaret Bean came timidly +to the door, and inquired if he did not want some breakfast. She had +to repeat her query three times, he was writing so busily, and then +he answered her “no” as if his thoughts were elsewhere. +The old woman hungrily eyed the paper upon which he was scribbling, +and went away with lingering backward glances.</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon, bending painfully over his desk, using his quill pen, +with wary motions of hand and wrist alone, that he might not jar his +wounded side, wrote a letter to the bride upon her +wedding-journey.</p> + +<p>“Madelon,” wrote Lot, “I pray you to pardon what +I have done, and what I am about to do. The danger of +blood-guiltiness and death have I brought upon you, and I now save +you in the only way I know. I pray you, when you read this, and know +what I have done, that you think of me with what charity you may, and +that the love which caused the deed may be its saving +grace.”</p> + +<p>Lot sat looking at what he had written for a moment, then tore it +up, and wrote again:</p> + +<p>“Madelon,—Alive I claimed nothing, dead I claim your +memory, for the sake of the love for which I died.”</p> + +<p>And, after a moment, tore up that also.</p> + +<p>And then he wrote again, with quivering lips, yet breathing +guardedly:</p> + +<p>“Madelon,—The love that was set betwixt man and woman +that the race might not die is one love, but there is another. That +have I found and found through you, and bless you for it, though +death be needful to its keeping. There is another birth than that of +the flesh, through this so great love, which can upon itself beget +immortality of love unto the understanding of all which is above. A +greater end of love than the life of worlds there is, which is love +itself. That end have I attained through this great love in my own +soul which you have shown me, else should I have never known it +there, and died so, having lived to myself alone, and been no true +lover. <br> “Lot Gordon.”</p> + +<p>And hesitated, reading it over; but at length tore that into +shreds, and wrote yet again:</p> + +<p>“Dear Child,—I pray you when I am gone that you wear +the pretty gowns and the trinkets which I offered you once, for I +would fain give you for your happiness more than my poor +life.”</p> + +<p>Tears of self-pity fell from Lot's eyes as he wrote the last; then +he laughed scornfully at himself, and tore that up. “Self dies +hard,” said he.</p> + +<p>He wrote no more to Madelon, but now to Burr:</p> + +<p>“Dear Cousin,” he wrote, “I have this day +discovered that my life is in imminent danger from the wound. If my +death comes in that wise there will be trouble. I take the only way +to save her, but I pray you, upon your honor, that you do not let her +know, for even your love cannot sweeten her life fully for her if she +knows; for love has taught me the heart of this woman. To you alone, +for the sake of the honor of our blood, which has never been shed by +our own hands before, I disclose this; for I would be set right in +the eyes of one man when I am dead.”</p> + +<p>Lot Gordon pondered long over that; but finally tore up that as he +had torn the others, and gathered up all the fragments and crawled +across the room with them, and threw them on the hearthfire.</p> + +<p>Then, leaving them blazing there, he returned to his desk, and +wrote:</p> + +<p>“<em>To all whom it may concern, or to all whom in their own +estimation it may concern, this:</em></p> + +<p>“I, Lot Gordon, of Ware Centre, being weary of life, which +is a dream, have resolved to force the waking. Having once before +attempted in vain to take my life, I now attempt it again, and this +time not in vain, for my hand has grown skilful with practice. I take +my life because of no wrong done me by man or woman, nor because of +any vain love; I take it solely because my days upon this earth being +numbered through my distress of the lungs, I have not the courage to +see death approach by inches, and prefer to meet him at one bound. I +have lived unto myself, with no man accountable, and I die unto +myself, with no man accountable; and this is the truth with my last +breath. <br> “Lot Gordon.”</p> + +<p>This last Lot folded neatly and addressed it “To my +fellow-townsmen,” and laid it in a conspicuous place on his +desk, and then wrote on another sheet and put that in his pocket. +Then he opened a drawer of the desk, and took out all the trinkets +which he had offered Madelon, in their pretty cases, and with them in +his hands crept out of the room, and up-stairs, into the chamber +which he had caused to be decked out so newly and grandly when he had +thought to marry her. There was a great carven chest in a corner of +the room, which Lot unlocked, and took from thence all those rich +fabrics which he had bought for Madelon. And then he laid them +all—the silken stuffs and plumes and fine linens and +jewels—out on the great bed, under the grand canopy, and placed +on the top the sheet of paper on which he had last written, +“For Madelon Gordon.”</p> + +<p>Margaret Bean had listened when Lot climbed the stairs. She heard +him when he came down again, entered his library, and shut the door. +She waited a long time. For some reason which she did not herself +know she felt cold with terror. She would not let her husband leave +her alone in the kitchen for a moment. At last, when it was nearly +noon, she bade him keep close at her heels, and went to the library +door and knocked, and when no answer came, knocked again and again +and again, louder and louder and louder. Then she made her husband +open the door, with fierce urgings, and peered around his shoulder +into the room. Then she gave one great shriek, and caught the old man +by the arm with a frantic clutch, and was out of the house with him +and screaming up the street.</p> + +<p>Saturday morning Burr and Madelon came riding into the village. As +they passed up the street everybody whom they met saluted them with a +manner which had in it something respectful, apologetic, and solemn. +The lovers felt no wonder at such return of cordiality, seeing in +everything but reflections of their own moods, and knew not what it +meant until they reached home.</p> + +<p>Then Elvira Gordon, meeting them at the door, told them that Lot +was dead by his own hand, by a knife-thrust which crossed the old +wound in his side; and she dwelt upon the reason for his deed: that +he had been slowly dying from the disease of his lungs, and had not +the courage to die by inches, which reason now all the town believed, +since the doctor had said no word in contradiction, and never would, +being mindful of his oath.</p> + +<p>Madelon listened, white and still, saying not a word; and she said +nothing when, up in their chamber, whither she went to take off her +bonnet, Burr, who had followed, took her in his arms, and they stood +together, looking at each other and trembling. Knowing not, and never +to know, the whole which he had done for them, they yet knew enough. +Suddenly, in the light of their own love another greater showed +revealed; and each exalted the image of Lot Gordon above the other, +and was acquaint with the spirit of what he had written and kept +back; for love that so outspeeds self and death needs no speech nor +written sign to prove its being.</p> + +<p align="center">THE END</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madelon, by Mary E. 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Wilkins Freeman + +Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17885] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MADELON *** + + + + +Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly + + + + + + +Madelon + +A Novel + +By + +Mary E. Wilkins + +Author of "A Humble Romance" +"Jane Field" etc. + +New York +Harper & Brothers Publishers +1896 + + + + + Love is the crown, and the crucifixion, of life, + and proves thereby its own divinity. + + + + +Chapter I + + +There was a new snow over the village. Indeed, it had ceased to fall +only at sunset, and it was now eight o'clock. It was heaped +apparently with the lightness of foam on the windward sides of the +roads, over the fences and the stone walls, and on the village roofs. +Its weight was evident only on the branches of the evergreen-trees, +which were bent low in their white shagginess, and lost their upward +spring. + +There were evergreens--Norway pines, spruces, and hemlocks--bordering +the road along which Burr Gordon was coming. Now and then he jostled +a low-hanging bough and shook off its load of snow upon his +shoulders. Then he walked nearer the middle of the street, tramping +steadily through the new snow. This was an old road, but little used +of late years, and the forest seemed to be moving upon it with the +unnoted swiftness of a procession endless from the beginning of the +world. In places the branches of the opposite pines stretched to each +other like white-draped arms across the road, and slender, snow-laden +saplings stood out in young crowds well in advance of the old trees. +At times the road was no more than a cart-path through the forest; +but it was a short-cut to the Hautville place, and that was why Burr +Gordon went that way. + +Everything was very still. The new-fallen snow seemed to muffle +silence itself, and do away with that wide susceptibility to sound +which affects one as forcibly as the crashing of cannon. + +There was no whisper of life from the village, which lay a half-mile +back; no roll of wheels, or shout, or peal of bell. Burr Gordon kept +on in utter silence until he came near the Hautville house. Then he +began to hear music: the soaring sweetness of a soprano voice, the +rich undertone of a bass, and the twang of stringed instruments. + +When he came close to the house the low structure itself, overlaid +with snow, and with snow clinging to its gray-shingled sides like +shreds of wool, seemed to vibrate and pulse and shake, and wax fairly +sonorous with music, like an organ. + +Burr Gordon stood still in the road and listened. The constituents of +the concert resolved themselves to his ear. There was a wonderful +soprano, a tenor, a bass, one sweet boy's voice, a bass-viol, and a +violin. They were practising a fugue. The soprano rang out like the +invitation of an angel, + + "Come, my beloved, haste away, + Cut short the hours of thy delay," + +above all the others--even the shrill boy-treble. Then it followed, +with noblest and sweetest order, the bass in-- + + "Fly like a youthful hart or roe, + Over the hills where the spices grow." + +The very breath of the spices of Arabia seemed borne into the young +man's senses by that voice. He saw in vision the blue tops of those +delectable hills where the myrtle and the cassia grew; he felt within +his limbs the ardent impulse of the hart or roe. He stood with his +head bent, listening, until the music ceased; the blue hills sank +suddenly into the land of the past, and all the spice-plants withered +away. + +There was but a few minutes' interval; then there was a chorus-- + + "Strike the Timbrel." + +Burr Gordon, listening, heard in that only the great soprano, and it +was to him like the voice of Miriam of old, summoning him to battle +and glory. + +But when that music ceased he did not wait any longer nor enter the +house, but stole away silently. This time he travelled the main road, +which intersected the old one at the Hautville house. The village +lights shone before him all the way. He was half-way to the village +when he met his cousin, Lot Gordon. He knew he was coming through the +pale darkness of the night some time before he was actually in sight +by his cough. Lot Gordon had had for years a sharp cough which +afflicted him particularly when he walked abroad in night air. It +carried as far as the yelp of a dog; when Burr first heard it he +stopped short, and looked irresolutely at the thicket beside the +road. He had a half-impulse to slink in there among the snowy bushes +and hide until his cousin passed by. Then he shook his head angrily +and kept on. + +However, when the two men drew near each other Burr kept well to his +side of the road and strode on rapidly, hoping his cousin might not +recognize him. But Lot, with a hoarse laugh and another cough, +swerved after him and jostled him roughly. + +"Can't cheat me, Burr Gordon," said he. + +"I don't want to cheat you," returned Burr, in a surly tone. + +"You can't if you do. Set me down anywhere in the woods when there's +a wind, and I'll tell ye what the trees are if it's so dark you can't +see a leaf by the way the boughs blow. The maples strike out stiff +like dead men's arms, and the elms lash like live snakes, and the +pines stir all together like women. I can tell the trees no matter +how dark 'tis by the way they move, and I can tell a Gordon by the +swing of his shoulders, no matter how fast he slinks by on the other +side in the shadow. You don't set much by me, Burr, and I don't set +any too much by you, but we've got to swing our shoulders one way, +whether we will or no, because our father and our grandfather did +before us. Good Lord, aren't men in leading-strings, no matter how +high they kick!" + +"I can't stand here in the snow talking," said Burr, and he tried to +push past. But the other man stood before him with another laugh and +cough. "You aren't talking, Burr; I'm the one that's talking, and +I've heard stuff that was worse to listen to. You'd better stand +still." + +"I tell you I'm going," said Burr, with a thrust of his elbow in his +cousin's side. + +"Well," said Lot, "go if you want to, or go if you don't want to. +That last is what you're doing, Burr Gordon." + +"What do mean by that?" + +"You're going to see Dorothy Fair when you want to see Madelon +Hautville, because you don't want to do what you want to. Well, go +on. I'm going to see Madelon and hear her sing. I've given up trying +to work against my own motions. It's no use; when you think you've +done it, you haven't. You never can get out of this one gait that you +were born to except in your own looking-glass. Go and court Dorothy +Fair, and in spite of yourself you'll kiss the other girl when you're +kissing her. Well, I sha'n't cheat Madelon Hautville that way." + +"You know--she will not--you know Madelon Hautville never--" +stammered Burr Gordon, furiously. + +Lot laughed again. "You think she sets so much by you she'll never +kiss me," said he. "Don't be too sure, Burr. Nature's nature, and the +best of us come under it. Madelon Hautville's got her place, like all +the rest. There isn't a rose that's too good to take a bee in. Go do +your own courting, and trust me to do mine. Courting's in our +blood--I sha'n't disgrace the family." + +Burr Gordon went past his cousin with a smothered ejaculation. Lot +laughed again, and tramped, coughing, away to the Hautville house. +When he drew near the house the chorus within were still practising +"Strike the Timbrel." When he opened the door and entered there was +no cessation in the music, but suddenly the girl's voice seemed to +gain new impulse and hurl itself in his face like a war-trumpet. + +Burr Gordon kept on to Minister Jonathan Fair's great house in the +village, next the tavern. There was a light in the north parlor, and +he knew Dorothy was expecting him. He raised the knocker, and knew +when it fell that a girl's heart within responded to it with a wild +beat. + +He waited until there was a heavy shuffle of feet in the hall and the +door opened, and Minister Fair's black servant-woman stood there +flaring a candle before his eyes. + +"Who be you?" said she, in her rich drone, which had yet a twang of +hostility in it. + +Burr Gordon ignored her question. "Is Miss Dorothy at home?" said he. + +"Yes, she's at home, I s'pose," muttered the woman, grudgingly. She +distrusted this young man as a suitor for Dorothy. The girl's mother +had long been dead, and this old dark woman, whose very thoughts +seemed to the village people to move on barbarian pivots of their +own, had a jealous guardianship of her which exceeded that of her +father. + +Now she filled up the doorway before Burr Gordon with her majestic, +palpitating bulk, her great black face stiffened back with obstinacy. +It was said that she had been born in Africa, and had been a princess +in her own country; and, indeed, she bore herself like one now, and +held up her orange-turbaned head as if it were crowned, and bore her +candle like a flaming sceptre which brought out strange gleams of +color and metallic lustres from her garments and the rows of beads on +her black neck. + +Burr Gordon made an impatient yet deferential motion to enter. "I +would like to see her a few minutes if she is at home," said he. + +The woman muttered something which might have been in her native +dialect, the words were so rolled into each other under her thick +tongue. Her small, sharp eyes were fairly malicious upon the young +man's handsome face. + +"I don't know what you say," he said, half angrily. "Can't I see +her?" + +"She's in the north parlor, I s'pose," muttered the black woman; and +she stood aside and let Burr Gordon pass in, following him with her +hostile eyes as he opened the north-parlor door. Dorothy Fair sat +with her embroidery-work at the mahogany table, whereon a whole +branch of candles burned in silver sticks. She was working a muslin +collar for her own adornment, and she set a fine stitch in a sprig +before she rose up, either to prove her self-command to herself or to +Burr Gordon. She had also held herself quiet during the delay in the +hall. + +Dorothy Fair came of a gentle and self-controlled race of New England +ministers; but now her young heart carried her away. She stood up; +her embroidery, with her scissors and bodkin, slid to the ground, and +she came forward with her fair curls dropping around a face pink and +smiling openly with love like a child's, and was, seemingly half of +her own accord, in Burr Gordon's arms with her lips meeting his; and +then they sat down side by side on the north-parlor sofa. + +Dorothy Fair's face was very sweet to see; her blue eyes and her soft +lips were innocent and fond under her lover's gaze. Her little white +hand clung to his like a baby's. There was a sweet hollow under her +chin, above her fine lace collar. Her soft, fair curls smelt in his +face of roses and lavender. The utter daintiness of this maiden +Dorothy Fair was a separate charm and a fascination full of subtle +and innocent earthiness to the senses of a lover. She appealed to his +selfish delight like a sweet-scented flower, like a pink or a rose. + +Lot Gordon had been only half right in his analysis of his cousin's +wooing. When Burr sat with his arm around this maiden's waist, with +his face bent tenderly down towards the soft, pink cheek on his +shoulder, this sweetness near at hand was wellnigh sufficient for +him, and Dorothy's shy murmur of love in his ear overcame largely the +memory of the other's wonderful song. A bee cares only for the honey +and not for the flower, therefore one flower is as dear to him as +another; and so it is with many a lover when he gets fairly to +tasting love. The memory of the rose before fades, even if he never +wore it. Then, too, Burr Gordon had a sense of approbation from his +shrewder self which sustained him. This Dorothy Fair, the minister's +daughter, of gentle New England lineage, the descendant of +college-learned men, and of women who had held themselves with a fine +dignity and mild reserve in the village society, the sole heiress of +what seemed a goodly property to the simple needs of the day, +appealed to his reason as well as his heart. He remained until near +midnight, while the old black woman crouched with the patience of a +watching animal outside the door, and he wooed Dorothy Fair with +ardor and delight, although her softly affectionate kisses were to +Madelon Hautville's as the fall of snow-flakes to drops of warm +honey. And although after he had gone home and fallen asleep his +dreams were mixed, still when he waked with the image of Madelon +between himself and Dorothy, because sleep had set his heart free, it +was still with that sense of approbation. + +Madelon Hautville was not considered a fair match for a young man who +had claims to ambition. The Hautville family held a peculiar place in +public estimation. They belonged not to any defined stratum of the +village society, but formed rather a side ledge, a cropping, of quite +another kind, at which people looked askance. One reason undoubtedly +was the mixture of foreign blood which their name denoted. Anything +of alien race was looked upon with a mixture of fear and aversion in +this village of people whose blood had flowed in one course for +generations. The Hautvilles were said to have French and Indian blood +yet, in strong measure, in their veins; it was certain that they had +both, although it was fairly back in history since the first +Hautville, who, report said, was of a noble French family, had +espoused an Iroquois Indian girl. The sturdy males of the family had +handed down the name and the characteristics of the races through +years of intermarriage with the English settlers. All the +Hautvilles--the father, the four sons, and the daughter--were tall +and dark, and straight as arrows, and they all had wondrous grace of +manner, which abashed and half offended, while it charmed, the stiff +village people. Not a young man in the village, no matter how finely +attired in city-made clothing, had the courtly air of these Hautville +sons, in their rude, half-woodland garb; not a girl, not even Dorothy +Fair, could wear a gown of brocade with the grace, inherited from a +far-away French grandmother, with which Madelon Hautville wore indigo +cotton. + +Moreover, the whole family was as musical as a band of troubadours, +and while that brought them into constant requisition and gave them +an importance in the town, it yet caused them to be held with a +certain cheapness. Music as an end of existence and means of +livelihood was lightly estimated by the followers of the learned +professions, the wielders of weighty doctrines and drugs, and also by +the tillers of the stern New England soil. The Hautvilles, furnishing +the music in church, and for dances and funerals, were regarded much +in the light of mountebanks, and jugglers with sweet sounds. People +wondered that Lot and Burr Gordon should go to their house so much. +Not a week all winter but Burr had been there once or twice, and Lot +had been there nearly every night when his cousin was not. And he +stayed late also--this night he outstayed Burr at Dorothy Fair's. The +music was kept up until a late hour, for Madelon proposed tune after +tune with nervous ardor when her father and brothers seemed to flag. +Nobody paid much attention to Lot; he was too constant a visitor. He +settled into a favorite chair of his near the fire, and listened with +the firelight playing over his delicate, peaked face. Now and then he +coughed. + +Old David Hautville, the father, stood out in front of the hearth by +his great bass-viol, leaning fondly over it like a lover over his +mistress. David Hautville was a great, spare man--a body of muscles +and sinews under dry, brown flesh, like an old oak-tree. His long, +white mustache curved towards his ears with sharp sweeps, like doves' +wings. His thick, white brows met over his keen, black eyes. He kept +time with his head, jerking it impatiently now and then, when some +one lagged or sped ahead in the musical race. + +Three of the Hautville sons were men grown. One, Louis, laid his +dark, smooth cheek caressingly against the violin which he played. +Eugene sang the sonorous tenor, and Abner the bass, like an organ. +The youngest son, Richard, small and slender as a girl, so like +Madelon that he might have been taken for her had he been dressed in +feminine gear, lifted his eager face at her side and raised his +piercing, sweet treble, which seemed to pass beyond hearing into +fancy. Madelon, her brown throat swelling above her lace tucker, like +a bird's, stood in the midst of the men, and sang and sang, and her +wonderful soprano flowed through the harmony like a river of honey; +and yet now and then it came with a sudden fierce impetus, as if she +would force some enemy to bay with music. Madelon was slender, but +full of curves which were like the soft breast of a bird before an +enemy. Sometimes as she sang she flung out her slender hands with a +nervous gesture which had hostility in it. Truth was that she hated +Lot Gordon both on his own account and because he came instead of his +cousin Burr. She had expected Burr that night; she had taken his +cousin's hand on the doorlatch for his. He had not been to see her +for three weeks, and her heart was breaking as she sang. Any face +which had appeared to her instead of his in the doorway that night +would have been to her as the face of a bitter enemy or a black +providence, but Lot Gordon was in himself hateful to her. She knew, +too, by a curious revulsion of all her senses from unwelcome desire, +that he loved her, and the love of any man except Burr Gordon was to +her like a serpent. + +She would not look at him, but somehow she knew that his eyes were +upon her, and that they were full of love and malice, and she knew +not which she dreaded more. She resolved that he should not have a +word with her that night if she could help it, and so she urged on +her father and her brothers with new tunes until they would have no +more, and went off to bed--all except the boy Richard. She whispered +in his ear, and he stayed behind with her while she mixed some bread +and set it for rising on the hearth. + +Lot Gordon sat watching her. There was a hungry look in his hollow +blue eyes. Now and then he coughed painfully, and clapped his hand to +his chest with an impatient movement. + +"Well, whether I ever get to heaven or not, I've heard music," he +said, when she passed him with the bread-bowl on her hip and her soft +arm curved around it. He reached out his slender hand and caught hold +of her dress-skirt; she jerked away with a haughty motion, and set +the bowl on the hearth. "You'd better rake down the fire now, +Richard," said she. + +The boy jostled Lot roughly as he passed around him to get the +fire-shovel. Lot looked at the clock, and the hand was near twelve. +He arose slowly. + +"I met Burr on his way down to Parson Fair's," he said. + +Madelon covered up the bread closely with a linen towel. There was a +surging in her ears, as if misery itself had a veritable sound, and +her face was as white as the ashes on the hearth, but she kept it +turned away from Lot. + +"Well," said he, in his husky drawl, "a rose isn't a rose to a bee, +she's only a honey-pot; and she's only one out of a shelfful to him; +she can't complain, it's what she was born to. If she finds any fault +it's got to be with creation, and what's one rose to face creation? +There's nothing to do but to make the best of it. Good-night, +Madelon." + +"Good-night," said Madelon. The color had come back to her cheeks, +and she looked back at him proudly, standing beside her bread-bowl on +the hearth. + +Lot passed out, turning his delicate face over his shoulder with a +subtle smile as he went. Richard clapped the door to after him with a +jar that shook the house, and shot the bolt viciously. "I'll get my +gun and follow him if you say so, and then I'll find Burr Gordon," he +said, turning a furious face to his sister. + +"Would you make me a laughing-stock to the whole town?" said she. +"Rake down the fire; it's time to go to bed." + +She looked as proudly at her brother as she had done at Lot. The +resemblance between the two faces faded a little as they confronted +each other. A virile quality in the boy's anger made the difference +of sex more apparent. He looked at her, holding his wrath, as it +were, like a two-edged sword which must smite some one. "If I thought +you cared about that man that has jilted you--and I've heard the talk +about it," said he, "I'd feel like shooting _you_." + +"You needn't shoot," returned Madelon. + +The boy looked at her as angrily as if she were Burr Gordon. Suddenly +her mouth quivered a little and her eyes fell. The boy flung both his +arms around her. "I don't care," he said, brokenly, in his sweet +treble--"I don't care, you're the handsomest girl in the town, and +the best and the smartest, and not one can sing like you, and I'll +kill any man that treats you ill--I will, I will!" He was sobbing on +his sister's shoulder; she stood still, looking over his dark head at +the snow-hung window and the night outside. Her lips and eyes were +quite steady now; she had recovered self-control when her brother's +failed him, as if by some curious mental seesaw. + +"No man can treat me ill unless I take it ill," said she, "and that +I'll do for no man. There's no killing to be done, and if there were +I'd do it myself and ask nobody. Come, Richard, let me go; I'm going +to bed." She gave the boy's head a firm pat. "There's a turnover in +the pantry, under a bowl on the lowermost shelf," said she; and she +laughed in his passionate, flushed face when he raised it. + +"I don't care, I will!" he cried. + +"Go and get your turnover; I saved it for you," said she, with a +push. + +Neither of them dreamed that Lot Gordon had been watching them, +standing in a snow-drift under the south window, his eyes peering +over the sill, his forehead wet with a snow-wreath, stifling back his +cough. When at last the candlelight went out in the great kitchen he +crept stiffly and wearily through the snow. + + + + +Chapter II + + +Lot Gordon lived about half a mile away in the old Gordon homestead +alone, except for an old servant-woman and her husband, who managed +his house for him and took care of the farm. Lot himself did not work +in the common acceptance of the term. His father had left him quite a +property, and he did not need to toil for his bread. People called +him lazy. He owned nearly as many books as the parson and the lawyer. +He often read all night it was said, and he roamed the woods in all +seasons. Under low-hanging winter boughs and summer arches did Lot +Gordon pry and slink and lie in wait, his fine, sharp face peering +through snowy tunnels or white spring thickets like a white fox, +hungrily intent upon the secrets of nature. + +There was a deep mystery in this to the village people. They could +not fathom the reason for a man's haunting wild places like a wild +animal unless he hunted and trapped like the Hautville sons. They +were suspicious of dark motives, upon which they exercised their +imaginations. + +Lot Gordon's talk, moreover, was an enigma to them. He was no +favorite, and only his goodly property tempered his ill repute. +People could not help identifying him, in a measure, with his noble +old house, with the stately pillared portico, with his silver-plate +and damask and mahogany, which his great-grandfather had brought from +the old country, with his fine fields and his money in the bank. He +held, moreover, a large mortgage on the house opposite, where Burr +Gordon lived with his mother. Burr's father and Lot's, although sons +of one shrewd father, had been of very different financial abilities. +Lot's father kept his property intact, never wasting, but adding from +others' waste. Burr's plunged into speculation, built a new house, +for which he could not pay, married a wife who was not thrifty, and +when his father died had anticipated the larger portion of his +birthright. So Lot's father succeeded to nearly all the family +estates, and in time absorbed the rest. Lot, at his father's death, +had inherited the mortgage upon the estate of Burr and his mother. +Burr's father had died some time before. Lot was rumored to be +harder, in the matter of exacting heavy interest, than his father had +been. It was said that Burr was far behind in his payments, and that +Lot would foreclose. Burr had a better head than his father's, but he +had terrible odds against him. There was only one chance for his +release from difficulty, people thought. All the property, by a +provision in the grandfather's will, was to fall to him if Lot died +unmarried. Lot was twenty years older than Burr, and he coughed. + +"Burr Gordon ain't makin' out much now," people said; "the paint's +all off his house and his land's run down, but there's dead men's +shoes with gold buckles in the path ahead of him." + +Burr thought of it sometimes, although he turned his face from the +thought, and Lot considered it when he took the mortgage note out of +his desk and scored another installment of unpaid interest on it. "If +a man's only his own debtor he won't be very hard on himself," he +said aloud, and laughed. Old Margaret Bean, his housekeeper, looked +at him over her spectacles, but she did not know what he meant. She +prepared many a valuable remedy for his cough from herbs and roots, +but Lot would never taste them, and she made her old husband swallow +them all as preventatives of colds, that they should not be wasted. +Lot was coughing harder lately. To-night, after he returned from the +Hautvilles', he had one paroxysm after another. He did not go to bed, +but huddled over the fire wrapped in a shawl, with a leather-bound +book on his knees, all night, holding to his chest when he coughed, +then turning to his book again. + +When daylight was fully in the room he blew out the candle, and went +over to the window and looked out across the road at the house +opposite, which had always been called the "new house" to distinguish +it from the old Gordon homestead. It was not so solid and noble as +the other, but it had sundry little touches of later times, which his +father had always characterized as wasteful follies. For one thing, +it was elevated ostentatiously far above the road-level upon terraces +surmounted by a flight of stone steps. It fairly looked down, like +any spirit of a younger age, upon the older house, which might have +been regarded in a way as its progenitor. + +The smoke was coming out of the kitchen chimney in the ell. Lot +Gordon looked across. Burr was clearing the snow from the stone steps +over the terraces. There had never been any lack of energy and +industry in Burr to account for his flagging fortunes. He arose +betimes every morning. Lot, standing well behind the dimity curtain, +watched him flinging the snow aside like spray, his handsome face +glowing like a rose. + +"I suppose he is going to the party at the tavern to-night," Lot +murmured. Suddenly his face took on a piteous, wistful look like a +woman's; tears stood in his blue eyes. He doubled over with a violent +fit of coughing, then went back to his chair and his book. + +This party had been the talk of the village for several weeks. It was +to be an unusually large one. People were coming from all the towns +roundabout. Burr Gordon had been one of the ringleaders of the +enterprise. All day long he worked over the preparations, dragging +out evergreen garlands from under the snow in the woods, cutting +hemlock boughs, and trimming the ball-room in the tavern. Towards +night he heard a piece of news which threatened to bring everything +to a standstill. The dusk was thickening fast; Burr and the two young +men who were working with him were hurrying to finish the decorations +before candlelight when Richard Hautville came in. Burr started when +he saw him. He looked so like his sister in the dim light that he +thought for a moment she was there. + +Richard did not notice him at all. He hustled by him roughly and +approached the other two young men. "Louis can't fiddle to-night," he +announced, curtly. The young men stared at him in dismay. + +"What's the trouble?" asked Burr. + +"He's hurt his arm," replied Richard; but he still addressed the +other two, and made as if he were not answering Burr. + +"Broke it?" asked one of the others. + +"No; sprained it. He was clearing the snow off the barn roof and the +ladder fell. It's all black-and-blue, and he can't lift it enough to +fiddle to-night." + +The three young men looked at each other. + +"What's going to be done?" said one. + +"I don't know," said Burr. "There's Davy Barrett, over to the Four +Corners--I suppose we might get him if we sent right over." + +"You can't get him," said Richard Hautville, still addressing the +other two, as if they had spoken. "Louis said you couldn't. His +wife's got the typhus-fever, and he's up nights watching with +her--won't let anybody else. You can't get him." + +"We can't have a ball without a fiddler," one young man said, +soberly. + +"Maybe Madelon would lilt for the dancing," Burr Gordon said; and +then he colored furiously, as if he had startled himself in saying +it. + +The boy turned on him. "Maybe you think my sister will lilt for you +to dance, Burr Gordon!" cried he, and his face blazed white in Burr's +eyes, and he shook his slender brown fist. + +"Nobody wants your sister to lilt if she isn't willing to," Burr +returned, in a hard voice; and he snatched up a hemlock bough, and +went away with it to the other side of the ball-room. + +"My sister won't lilt for you, and you can have your ball the best +way you can!" shouted the boy, his angry eyes following Burr. Then he +went out of the ball-room with a leap, and slammed the door so that +the tavern trembled. + +The young men chuckled. "Injun blood is up," said one. + +"You'll be scalped, Burr," called the other. + +Burr came over to them with an angry stride. "Oh, quit fooling!" said +he, impatiently. "What's going to be done?" + +"Nothing can be done; we shall have to give the ball up for to-night +unless you can get Madelon Hautville to lilt for the dancing," +returned one, and the other nodded assent. "That's the state of the +case," said he. + +Burr scraped a foot impatiently on the waxed floor. "Go and ask her +yourself, Daniel Plympton," said he. "I don't see why it has all got +to come on to me." + +"Can't," replied Daniel Plympton, with a laugh. "Remember the falling +out Eugene and I had at the house-raising? I ain't going to his house +to ask his sister to lilt for my dancing." + +"You, then, Abner Little," said Burr, peremptorily, to the other +young man. He had a fair, nervous face, and he was screwing his +forehead anxiously over the situation. + +"Can't nohow, Burr," said he. "I've got to drive four miles home, and +milk, and take care of the horses, and shave, and get dressed, and +then drive another three miles for my girl. I'm going to take one of +the Morse girls, over at Summer Falls. I haven't got time to go down +to the Hautvilles', and that's the truth, Burr." + +"You'll have to go yourself, Burr," said Daniel Plympton, with a +half-laugh. + +"I can't," said Burr, "and I won't, if we give the ball up." + +"What will all the out-of-town folks say?" + +"I don't care what they say--they can play forfeits." + +"Forfeits!" returned Daniel Plympton with scorn. "What's kissing to +dancing?" Daniel Plympton was somewhat stout but curiously light of +foot, and accounted the best dancer in town. As he spoke he sprang up +on his toes as if he had winged heels. "Forfeits!" repeated he, +jerking his great flaxen head. + +"Well, you can go yourself, then, and ask Madelon Hautville to lilt," +said Burr. + +"I tell you I can't, Burr--I ain't mean enough." + +"Well, I won't, and that's flat." + +"I've got to go home, anyway," said Abner Little. "What I want to +know is--is there going to be any ball?" + +"Oh, get your girl anyhow, Ab," returned Daniel, with a great laugh; +"there'll be something. If there ain't dancing, there'll be kissing, +and that'll suit her just as well. And if she can't get enough here, +why there's the ride home. Lord, I'd get a girl nearer home! You've +got to drive six miles out of your way to Summer Falls and back. As +for me, the quicker I get a girl off my hands the better. I'm going +to take Nancy Blake because she lives next door to the tavern. Go +along with ye, Ab; Burr and I will settle it some way." + +But it looked for some time after Abner Little left as if there would +be no ball that night. They could not have any dance unless Madelon +Hautville would sing for it, and both Daniel Plympton and Burr Gordon +were determined not to ask her. + +At half-past seven Madelon was all dressed for the ball, and neither +of them had come to see her about it. She and all her brothers except +Louis were going. They wondered who would play for the dancing, but +supposed some arrangements would be made. "Burr Gordon will put it +through somehow," said Louis. "Maybe he'll ride over to Farnham +Hollow and get Luke Corliss to fiddle." Louis sat discontentedly by +the fire, with his arm soaking in cider-brandy and wormwood. + +"Farnham Hollow is ten miles away," said Richard. + +"His horse is fast; he'd get him here by eight o'clock," returned +Louis. + +Madelon was radiant. In spite of herself, she was full of hope in +going to the ball. She knew Dorothy Fair would not be present, since +her father was the orthodox parson, and she had seen her own face in +her glass. With her rival away, what could not a face like that do +with a heart that leaned towards it of its own nature? Madelon dimly +felt that Burr Gordon had to resist himself as well as her in this +matter. She had tended a monthly rose in the south window all winter, +and she wore two red roses in her black braids. Her cheeks and her +lips were fuller of warm red life than the roses. She lowered her +black eyes before her father and her brothers, for there was a light +in them which she could not subdue, which belonged to Burr Gordon +only. No costly finery had Madelon Hautville, but she had done some +cunning needle-work on an old black-satin gown of her mother's, and +it was fitted as softly over her sweet curves as a leaf over a bud. A +long garland of flowers after her own design had she wrought in +bright-colored silks around the petticoat, and there were knots of +red ribbon to fasten the loopings here and there. And she wore +another red rose in her lace tucker against her soft brown bosom. +Madelon wore, too, trim black-silk stockings with red clocks over her +slender ankles, and little black-satin shoes with steel buckles and +red rosettes. Every one of her brothers, except the youngest, +Richard, must needs compare her in his own heart, to her +disparagement, with some maid not his sister, but they all viewed her +with pride. Old David Hautville's eyes, under his thick, white brows, +followed her and dwelt upon her as she moved around the kitchen. + +Madelon had got out her red cloak and her silk hood, and it was +nearly time to start when there was a knock on the door. Madelon's +face was pale in a second, then red again. She pushed Richard aside. +"I'll go to the door," said she. + +She knew somehow that it was Burr Gordon, and when she opened the +door he stood there. He looked curiously embarrassed, but she did not +notice that. His mere presence for the moment seemed to fill all her +comprehension. She had no eye for shades of expression. + +"Come in," said she, all blushing and trembling before him, and yet +with a certain dignity which never quite deserted her. + +"Can I see you a minute?" Burr said, awkwardly. + +"Come this way." + +Madelon led the way into the best room, where there was no fire. It +had not been warmed all winter, except on nights when Burr had come +courting her. In the midst of it the great curtained bedstead reared +itself, holding its feather-bed like a drift of snow. The floor was +sanded in a fine, small pattern, there were white tasselled curtains +at the windows, and there was a tall chest of drawers that reached +the ceiling. The room was just as Madelon's mother, who had been one +of the village girls, had left it. + +Madelon glanced at the hearth, where she had laid the wood +symmetrically--all ready to be kindled at a moment's notice should +Burr come. "I'll light the fire," said she, in a trembling voice. + +"No, I can't stop," returned the young man. "I've got to go right up +to the tavern. Look here, Madelon--" + +"Well?" she murmured, trembling. + +"I want to know if--look here, won't you lilt for the dancing +to-night, Madelon?" + +Madelon's face changed. "That's all he came for," she thought. She +turned away from him. "You'd better get Luke Corliss to fiddle," she +said, coldly. + +"We can't. I started to go over there, and I met a man that lives +next door to him, and he said it was no use, for Luke had gone down +to Winfield to fiddle at a ball there." + +"I don't feel like lilting to-night," said Madelon. + +The young man colored. "Well," said he, in a stiff, embarrassed +voice, and he turned towards the door, "we won't have any ball +to-night, that's all," he added. + +"Well, you can go visiting instead," returned Madelon, suddenly. + +"I'd rather go a-visiting--here!" cried Burr, with a quick fervor, +and he turned back and came close to her. + +Madelon looked at him sharply, steeling her heart against his tender +tone, but he met her gaze with passionate eyes. + +"Oh, Madelon, you look so beautiful to-night!" he whispered, +hoarsely. Her eyes fell before his. She made, whether she would or +not, a motion towards him, and he put his arms around her. They +kissed again and again, lingering upon each kiss as if it were a +foothold in heaven. A great rapture of faith in her lover and his +love came over Madelon. She said to herself that they had lied--they +had all lied! Burr had never courted Dorothy Fair. She believed, with +her whole heart and soul, that he loved her and her alone. And, +indeed, she was at that time, at that minute, right and not deceived; +for Burr Gordon was one of those who can encompass love in one tense +only, and that the present; and they who love only in the present, +hampered by no memories and no dreams, yield out love's sweetness +fully. All Burr Gordon's soul was in his kisses and his fond eyes, +and her own crept out to meet it with perfect faith. + +"I will lilt for the dancing," she whispered. + +The Hautvilles were going to the ball on their wood-sled, drawn by +oxen. David was to drive them, and take the team home. It was already +before the door when Burr came out, and Madelon asked him to ride +with them, but he refused. "I've got to go home first," he said, and +plunged off quickly down the old road, the short-cut to his house. + +Madelon Hautville, in her red cloak and her great silk hood, stood in +the midst of her brothers on the wood-sled, and the oxen drew them +ponderously to the ball. The tavern was all alight. Many other sleds +were drawn up before the door; indeed, certain of the young men who +had not their especial sweethearts took their ox-sleds and went from +door to door collecting the young women. Many a jingling load slipped +along the snowy road to the tavern that night, and the ball-room +filled rapidly. + +At eight o'clock the ball opened. Madelon stood up in the little +gallery allotted to the violins and lilted, and the march began. Two +and two, the young men and the girls swung around the room. Madelon +lilted with her eyes upon the moving throng, gay as a garden in a +wind; and suddenly her heart stood still, although she lilted on. +Down on the floor below Burr Gordon led the march, with Dorothy Fair +on his arm. Dorothy Fair, waving a great painted fan with the +tremulous motion of a butterfly's wing, with her blue brocade +petticoat tilting airily as she moved, like an inverted bell-flower, +with a locket set in brilliants flashing on her white neck, with her +pink-and-white face smiling out with gentle gayety from her fair +curls, stepped delicately, pointing out her blue satin toes, around +the ball-room, with one little white hand on Burr Gordon's arm. + + + + +Chapter III + + +Suddenly all Madelon's beauty was cheapened in her own eyes. She saw +herself swart and harsh-faced as some old savage squaw beside this +fair angel. She turned on herself as well as on her recreant lover +with rage and disdain--and all the time she lilted without one break. + +The ball swung on and on, and Madelon, up in the musicians' gallery, +sang the old country-dances in the curious dissyllabic fashion termed +lilting. It never occurred to her to wonder how it was that Dorothy +Fair, the daughter of the orthodox minister, should be at the +ball--she who had been brought up to believe in the sinful and +hellward tendencies of the dance. Madelon only grasped the fact that +she was there with Burr; but others wondered, and the surprise had +been great when Dorothy in her blue brocade had appeared in the +ball-room. + +This had been largely of late years a liberal and Unitarian village, +but Parson Fair had always held stanchly to his stern orthodox +tenets, and promulgated them undiluted before his thinning +congregations and in his own household. Dorothy could not only not +play cards or dance, but she could not be present at a party where +the cards were produced or the fiddle played. There was, indeed, a +rumor that she had learned to dance when she was in Boston at school, +but no one knew for certain. + +Dorothy Fair was advancing daintily between the two long lines, +holding up her blue brocade to clear her blue-satin shoes, to meet +the young man from the opposite corner, flinging out gayly towards +her, when suddenly, with no warning whatever, a great dark woman sped +after her through the dance, like a wild animal of her native woods. +She reached out her black hand and caught Dorothy by the white, +lace-draped arm, and she whispered loud in her ear. + +The people near, finding it hard to understand the African woman's +thick tongue, could not exactly vouch for the words, but the purport +of her hurried speech they did not mistake. Parson Fair had +discovered Mistress Dorothy's absence, and home she must hasten at +once. It was evident enough to everybody that staid and decorous +Dorothy had run away to the ball with Burr Gordon, and a smothered +titter ran down the files of the Virginia reel. + +Burr Gordon cast a fierce glance around; then he sprang to Dorothy's +side, and she looked palely and piteously up at him. + +He pulled her hand through his arm and led her out of the ball-room, +with the black woman following sulkily, muttering to herself. Burr +bent closely down over Dorothy's drooping head as they passed out of +the door. "Don't be frightened, sweetheart," whispered he. Madelon +saw him as she lilted, and it seemed to her that she heard what he +said. + +It was not long after when she felt a touch on her shoulder as she +sat resting between the dances, gazing with her proud, bright eyes +down at the merry, chattering throng below. She turned, and her +brother Richard stood there with a strange young man, and Richard +held Louis's fiddle on his shoulder. + +"This is Mr. Otis, Madelon," said Richard, "and he came up from +Kingston to the ball, and he can fiddle as well as Louis, and he said +'twas a shame you should lilt all night and not have a chance to +dance yourself; and so I ran home and got Louis's fiddle, and there +are plenty down there to jump at the chance of you for a +partner--and--" the boy leaned forward and whispered in his sister's +ear: "Burr Gordon's gone--and Dorothy Fair." + +Madelon turned her beautiful, proud face towards the stranger, and +did not notice Richard at all. "Thank you, sir," said she, inclining +her long neck; "but I care not to dance--I'd as lief lilt." + +"But," said the strange young man, pressing forward impetuously and +gazing into her black eyes, "you look tired; 'tis a shame to work you +so." + +"I rest between the dances, and I am not tired," said Madelon, +coldly. + +"I beg you to let me fiddle for the rest of the ball," pleaded the +young man. "Let me fiddle while you dance; you may be sure I'll +fiddle my best for you." + +A tender note came into his voice, and, curiously enough, Madelon did +not resent it, although she had never seen him before and he had no +right. She looked up in his bright fair face with sudden hesitation, +and his blue eyes bent half humorously, half lovingly upon her. She +had a fierce desire to get away from this place, out into the night, +and home. "I do not care to dance," said she, falteringly; "but I +could go home, if you felt disposed to fiddle." + +"Then go home and rest," cried the stranger, brightly. "'Tis a strain +on the throat to lilt so long, and you cannot put in a new string as +you can in a fiddle." + +With that the young man came forward to the front of the little +gallery, and Madelon yielded up her place hesitatingly. + +"But you cannot dance yourself, sir," said she. + +"I have danced all I want to to-night," he replied, and began tuning +the fiddle. + +"I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, sir," Madelon said, and got her +hood and cloak from the back of the gallery with no more parley. + +The young man cast admiring glances after her as she went out, with +her young brother at her heels. + +"I'm going home with you," Richard said to her as they went down the +gallery stairs. + +"Not a step," said she. "You've just been after the fiddle, and +they're going to dance the Fisher's Hornpipe next." + +"You'll be afraid in that lonesome stretch after you leave the +village." + +"Afraid!" There was a ring of despairing scorn in the girl's voice, +as if she faced already such woe that the supposition of new terror +was an absurdity. + +They had come down to the ball-room floor, and were standing directly +in front of the musicians' gallery. The young fiddler, Jim Otis, +leaned over and looked at them. + +"I don't care," said Richard, "I won't let you go alone unless you +take my knife." + +Madelon laughed. "What nonsense!" said she, and tried to pass her +brother. + +But Richard held her by the arm while he rummaged in his pocket for +the great clasp-knife which he had earned himself by the sale of some +rabbit-skins, and which was the pride of his heart and his dearest +treasure, and opened it. "Here," said he, and he forced the +clasp-knife into his sister's hand. Otis, leaning over the gallery, +saw it all. Many of the dancers had gone to supper; there was no +other person very near them. "If you should meet a _bear_, you could +kill him with that knife--it's so strong," said the boy. "If you +don't take it I'll go home with you, and it's so late father won't +let me come out again to-night." + +"Well, I'll take it," Madelon said, wearily, and she passed out of +the ball-room with the knife in her hand, under her cloak. + +When she got out in the cold night air she sped along fast over the +creaking snow, still holding the knife clutched fast in her hand. She +began to lilt again as she went, and again Burr and Dorothy danced +together before her eyes. She passed Parson Fair's house, and the +best-room windows were lighted. She thought that Burr was there, and +she lilted more loudly the Virginia reel. + +After Parson Fair's house was some time left behind, and she had come +into the lengthy stretch of road, she saw a shadowy figure ahead. She +could not at first tell whether it was moving towards or from +her--whether it was a man or a woman; or, indeed, whether it were not +a forest tree encroaching on the road and moving in the wind. She +kept on swiftly, holding her knife under her cloak. She had stopped +singing. + +Presently she saw that the figure was a man, and coming her way; and +then her heart stood still, for she knew by the swing of his +shoulders that it was Burr Gordon. She threw back her proud head and +sped along towards him, grasping her knife under her cloak and +looking neither to the right nor left. She swerved not her eyes a +hair's-breadth when she came close to him--so close that their +shoulders almost touched in passing in the narrow path. + +Suddenly there was a quick sigh in her ear--"Oh, Madelon!" Then an +arm was flung around her waist and hot lips were pressed to her own. + +The mixed blood of two races, in which action is quick to follow +impulse, surged up to Madelon's head. She drew the hand which held +the knife from under her cloak and struck. "Kiss me again, Burr +Gordon, if you dare!" she cried out, and her cry was met by a groan +as he fell away from her into the snow. + + + + +Chapter IV + + +Madelon stood for a second looking at the dark, prostrate form as one +of her Iroquois ancestors might have looked at a fallen foe before he +drew his scalping-knife; then suddenly the surging of the savage +blood in her ears grew faint. She fell down on her knees beside him. +"Have I killed you, Burr?" she said, and bent her face down to +his--and it was not Burr, but Lot Gordon! + +The white, peaked face smiled up at her out of the snow. "You haven't +killed me if I die, since you took me for Burr," whispered Lot +Gordon. + +"Are you much hurt?" + +"I--don't know. The knife has gone a little way into my side. It has +not reached my heart, but that was hurt unto death already by life, +so this matters not." + +Madelon felt along his side and hit the handle of the clasp-knife, +firmly fixed. + +"Don't try to draw it out--you cannot," said Lot, and his pain forced +a groan from him. "I'll live, if I can, till the wound is healed for +the sake of your peace. I'd be content to die of it, since you gave +it in vengeance for another man's kiss, if it were not for you. But +they shall never know--they shall never--know." Lot's voice died +away in a faint murmur between his parted lips; his eyes stared up +with no meaning in them at the wintry stars. + +Madelon ran back on the road to the village, taking great leaps +through the snow, straining her eyes ahead. Now and then she cried +out hoarsely, as if she really saw some one, "Hullo! hullo!" At the +curve of the road she turned a headlong corner and ran roughly +against a man who was hurrying towards her; and this time it was Burr +Gordon. + +Burr reeled back with the shock; then his face peered into hers with +fear and wonder. "Is it you?" he stammered out. "What is the matter?" + +But Madelon caught his arm in a hard grip. "Come, quick!" she gasped, +and pulled him along the road after her. + +"What is the matter?" Burr demanded, half yielding and half +resisting. + +Madelon faced him suddenly as they sped along. "I met your cousin Lot +just below here and he kissed me, and I took him for you and stabbed +him, if you must know," she sobbed out, dryly. + +Burr gave a choking cry of horror. + +"I think I--have killed him," said she, and pulled him on faster. + +"And you meant to kill me?" + +"Yes, I did." + +"I wish to God you had!" Burr cried out, with a sudden fierce anger +at himself and her; and now he hurried on faster than she. + +Lot was quite motionless when they reached him. Burr threw himself +down in the snow and leaned his ear to his cousin's heart. Madelon +stood over them, panting. Suddenly a merry roulade of whistling broke +the awful stillness. Two men were coming down the road whistling +"Roy's Wife of Alidivalloch" as clearly soft and sweet as flutes, +accented with human gayety and mirth. + +On came the merry whistlers. Burr sprang up and grasped Madelon +Hautville's arm. "He isn't dead," he whispered, hoarsely. "Somebody's +coming. Go home, quick!" + +But Madelon looked at him with despairing obstinacy. "I'll stay," +said she. + +"I tell you, go! Somebody is coming. I'll get help. I'll send for the +doctor. Go home!" + +"No!" + +"Oh, Madelon, if you have ever loved me, go home!" + +Madelon turned away at that. "I'll be there when they come for me," +said she, and went swiftly down the road and out of sight in the +converging distance of trees, with the snow muffling her footsteps. + +When she reached home she groped her way into the living-room, which +was lighted only by the low, red gleam of the coals on the hearth. +Her father's gruff voice called out from the bedroom beyond: "That +you, Madelon?" + +"Yes," said she, and lighted a candle at the coals. + +"Have the boys come?" + +"No." + +Madelon went up the steep stairs to her chamber, but before she +opened her door her brother Louis's voice, broken with pain, besought +her to come into his room and bathe his sprained shoulder for him. +She went in, set the candle on the table, and rubbed in the +cider-brandy and wormwood without a word. Louis, in the midst of his +pain, kept looking up wonderingly at his sister's face. It looked as +if it were frozen. She did not seem to see him. Nothing about her +seemed alive but her gently moving hands. + +Suddenly he gave a startled cry. "What's that? Have you cut your +hand, Madelon?" Madelon glanced at her hand, and there was a broad +red stain over the palm and three of her fingers. + +"No," said she, and went on rubbing. + +"But it looks like blood!" cried Louis, knitting his pale brows at +her. + +Madelon made no reply. + +"Madelon, what is that on your hand?" + +"Blood." + +"How came it there?" + +"You'll know to-morrow." Madelon put the stopper in the cider-brandy +and wormwood bottle; then she covered up the wounded arm and went +out. + +"Madelon, what is it? What is the matter? What ails you?" Louis +called after her. + +"You'll know to-morrow," said she, and shut her chamber door, which +was nearly opposite Louis's. His youngest brother Richard occupied +the same room, having his little cot at the other side, under the +window. When he came in, an hour later, Louis turned to him eagerly. + +"Has anything happened?" he demanded. + +The boy's face, which was always so like his sister's, had the same +despair in it now. "Don't know of anything that's happened," he +returned, surlily. + +"What ails Madelon?" + +"I tell you I don't know." Richard would say no more. He blew out +his candle and tumbled into bed, turned his face to the window and +lay awake until and hour before dawn. Then he arose, dressed himself, +and went down-stairs. He put more wood on the hearth fire, then knelt +down before it, and puffed out his boyish cheeks at the bellows until +the new flames crept through the smoke. Then he lighted the lantern, +and went to the barn to milk and feed the stock. That was always +Richard's morning task, and he always on his way thither replenished +the hearth fire, that his sister Madelon might have a lighter and +speedier task at preparing breakfast. Madelon usually arose a +half-hour after Richard, and she was not behindhand this morning. She +entered the great living-room, lit the candles, and went about +getting breakfast. Human daily needs arise and set on tragedy as +remorselessly as the sun. + +Madelon Hautville, who had washed but a few hours ago the stain of +murder from her hand, in whose heart was an unsounded depth of +despair, mixed up the corn-meal daintily with cream, and baked the +cakes which her father and brothers loved before the fire, and laid +the table. She had always attended to the needs of the males of her +family with the stern faithfulness of an Indian squaw. Now, as she +worked, the wonder, softer than her other emotions, was upon her as +to how they would get on when she was in prison and after she was +dead; for she made no doubt that she had killed Lot Gordon and the +sheriff would be there presently for her, and she felt plainly the +fretting of the rope around her soft neck. She hoped they would not +come for her until breakfast was prepared and eaten, the dishes +cleared away, and the house tidied; but she listened like a savage +for a foot-fall and a hand at the door. She had packed a little +bundle ready to take with her before she left her chamber. Her cloak +and hood were laid out on the bed. + +When she sat down at the table with her father and brothers, all of +them except Richard and Louis stared at her with open amazement and +questioned her. Richard and Louis stared furtively at their sister's +face, as stiff, set, and pale as if she were dead, but they asked no +questions. Madelon said, in a voice that was not hers, that she was +not sick, and put pieces of Indian cake into her untasting mouth and +listened. But breakfast was well over and the dishes put away before +anybody came. And then it was not the sheriff to hale her to prison +on a charge of murder, but an old man from the village big with news. + +He was a relative of the Hautvilles, an uncle on the mother's side, +old and broken, scarcely able to find his feeble way on his shrunken +legs through the snow; but, with the instinct of gossip, the sharp +nose for his neighbors' affairs, still alert in him, he had arisen at +dawn to canvass the village, and had come thither at first, since he +anticipated that he might possibly have the delight of bringing the +intelligence before any of the family had heard it elsewhere. He came +in, dragging his old, snow-laden feet, tapping heavily with his stout +stick, and settled, cackling, into a chair. + +"Heard the news?" queried Uncle Luke basset, his eyes, like black +sparks, twinkling rapidly at all their faces. + +Madelon set the cups and saucers on the dresser. + +"We don't have any time for anybody's business but our own," quoth +David Hautville, gruffly. He did not like his wife's uncle. He was +tightening a string in his bass-viol; he pulled it as he spoke, and +it gave out a fierce twang. Louis sat moodily over the fire with his +painful arm in wet bandages. Richard was whittling kindling-wood, +with nervous speed, beside him. Eugene and Abner were cleaning their +guns. They all looked at the eager old man except Richard and Louis +and Madelon. + +"Burr Gordon has killed Lot so's to get his property," proclaimed the +old man, and his voice broke with eager delight and importance. + +Madelon gave a cry and sprang forward in front of him. "It's a lie!" +she shouted. + +The old man laughed in her face. "No, 'tain't, Madelon. You're +showin' a Christian sperrit to stan' up for him when he's jilted ye +for another gal, but 'tain't a lie. His knife, with his name on to +it, was a-stickin' out of Lot's side." + +"_It's a lie!_ I killed him with my brother Richard's knife!" + +The old man shrank back before her in incredulous horror. The great +bass-viol fell to the ground like a woman as David strode forward and +Abner and Eugene turned their shocked, white faces from their guns. + +"I killed him with Richard's knife," repeated Madelon. + +Richard got up and came around before her, thrusting his hand in his +pocket. He pulled out his own clasp-knife, and brandished it in her +face. "Here is my knife," he cried, fiercely--"my knife, with my name +cut in the handle. Say you killed Lot Gordon with it again!" + +Madelon snatched the knife out of her brother's hand and looked at it +with straining eyes. There, indeed, was a rude "R. H." cut in the +horn handle. She gasped. "What does this mean?" she cried out. + +"It means you have lost your wits," answered Richard, contemptuously; +but his eyes on his sister's face were full of pleading agony. + +"What knife did you give me when I started home last night?" + +"I gave you no knife." + +Old Luke Basset asserted himself again. "The gal's lost her balance," +he said. "It was Burr Gordon's knife, with his name cut into it, that +was stickin' out of Lot Gordon's side." + +"Is Lot Gordon dead?" Louis demanded, hoarsely. + +"No, he ain't dead, but the doctor thinks he can't live long. Ephraim +Steele and Eleazer Hooper were a-goin' home from the ball when they +come right on Lot layin' side of the road and Burr a-tryin' to draw +his knife out, so it shouldn't testify against him." + +"It's a lie!" Madelon groaned. "Burr Gordon did not kill him. It was +I! He met me, and tried to--kiss me, and--the knife was in my +hand--Richard made me take it because I was coming home alone, and +there had been rumors of a bear." + +"I did not," persisted Richard, doggedly. "I did not make her take my +knife. Here is my knife, with my name cut in the handle." + +Madelon turned on him fiercely. "You did, you know you did!" said +she. + +"Here is my knife, with my name cut on the handle." + +"You gave me a knife as I was coming out of the tavern." + +"No, I did not." + +"You did, and I killed him with it. It was not Burr! I ran for help, +and I met Burr, and I told him what I had done, and he went back with +me to Lot. Then he sent me home when he heard somebody coming. Ask +Lot Gordon if I did not kill him; if he can speak he can tell you." + +"There won't neither him nor Burr say a word," said the old man, "but +there was Burr's knife a-stickin' into Lot's side, with his name cut +into it." + +Madelon turned sharply to Louis. "You saw the blood on my hand when I +was rubbing your arm last night," she said. + +He made no reply, but stared gloomily at the fire. + +"Louis, you saw Lot Gordon's blood on my hand?" + +Louis sprang up with an oath, and pushed past her out of the room. + +"Louis," Madelon cried, "tell them!" + +"She is trying to shield Burr Gordon!" Louis called back, fiercely, +and the closing door shook the house like a cannon-shot. + +"Where is Burr?" Madelon demanded of old Luke Basset. + +"The sheriff took him to New Salem to jail this morning," he replied, +grinning. + +Madelon gave a great cry and started to rush out of the room, but her +father stood in her way. + +"Where are you going?" he asked, sternly. + +"I am going to get my hood and cloak, and then I am going to Lot +Gordon's." Her father stood aside, and she went out and up-stairs to +her chamber. She took up the red cloak which lay on her bed, and +examined it eagerly to see if by chance there was a blood stain +thereon to prove her guilt and Burr Gordon's innocence, but she could +find none. She had flung it back when she struck. She looked also +carefully at her pretty ball gown, but the black fabric showed no +stain. + +When she went down-stairs with her cloak and hood on old Luke Basset +was gone, and so were her brothers. Her father stood waiting for her, +and he had on his fur cap and his heavy cloak. He came forward and +took her firmly by the arm. "I'm going with you to Lot Gordon's," +said he. And they went out together and up the road, he still keeping +a firm hand on his daughter's arm, and neither spoke all the way to +Lot Gordon's house. + +When they reached it David Hautville opened the door without touching +the knocker, and strode in with Madelon following. Old Margaret Bean +was just passing through the entry with a great roll of linen cloths +in her arms, and she stopped when she saw them. + +"How is he?" whispered David, hoarsely. + +"He's pretty low," returned Margaret Bean, at the same time nodding +her head cautiously towards the door on her right. Long, smooth loops +of sallow hair fell from Margaret Bean's clean white cap over her +cheeks, which looked as if they had been scrubbed and rasped red with +tears. Her own gray hair was strained back out of sight--not to be +discovered, even when there was a murder in the house. + +"Does he know anybody?" queried David Hautville. + +"Just as well as ever he did." Margaret Bean rubbed a tear dry on +her cheek with her starched apron. + +"We've got to see him, then." + +"I dunno as you can--the doctor--" + +"I don't care anything about the doctor! We've _got_ to _see him!"_ +David's voice rang out quite loud in the hush of murder and death +which seemed to fill the house. Margaret Bean stood aside with a +scared look. David Hautville threw open the door on the right, and he +and Madelon went in. + +Lot Gordon's eyes turned towards them, but not his head. He lay as +still in bed as if he were already dead, and his long body raised the +gay patchwork quilt in a stiff ridge like a grave. + +Madelon went close to him and bent over him. "Tell who stabbed you," +said she, in a sharp voice. + +Lot looked up at her, and a red flush came over his livid face. + +"Tell who stabbed you." + +Lot smiled feebly, but he did not speak. + +Margaret Bean came in, with her old husband shuffling at her heels. A +great face, bristling with a yellow stubble of beard, appeared in the +door. It belonged to the sheriff, Jonas Hapgood, who had just +returned from taking Burr to New Salem. Madelon cast a desperate +glance around at them. "Lot Gordon," she cried out, "tell them--tell +them I was the one who stabbed you, and set Burr free!" + +There was a chuckle from Jonas Hapgood in the door. "Likely story," +he muttered to Margaret Bean's husband, and the old man nodded +wisely. + +"Tell them!" commanded Madelon. She reached out a hand as if she +would shake Lot Gordon into obedience, wounded unto death although he +was, but Lot only smiled up in her face. + +Then David Hautville bent his stern face down to the sick man's. "Lot +Gordon, tell the truth before God, daughter of mine or no daughter of +mine," said he, in his deep voice. Lot only followed Madelon with his +longing, smiling eyes. + +"Speak, Lot Gordon!" + +The wounded man turned his eyes on David and made a feeble motion, +scarcely more than a quiver of his hand, which seemed to express +negation. + +"Can't you speak?" + +Again Lot made that faint signal. + +"He ain't spoke sence they brought him home," said Margaret +Bean--"not a word to the doctor nor nobody." + +"I couldn't get a word out of him," announced the sheriff, stepping +farther into the room. "In course, there was Burr's knife and Burr +himself over him when the others came up, and that was proof enough; +but still we kinder thought we'd like to have Lot's word for it afore +he died, in case it came to hangin' with Burr; but I guess he's past +speakin'. I miss my guess if he can sense anything we say." + +"Tell them--tell them I was the one who stabbed you, and Burr is +innocent!" Madelon pleaded; but he smiled back at her unmoved. + +Jonas Hapgood's great body shook with mirth. "Likely story a gal did +it," he chuckled. + +"I did do it!" returned Madelon, fiercely, turning to him. + +"I guess you don't want your beau hung." + +"I tell you I killed this man. I am the one to be hung!" + + + + +Chapter V + + +The sheriff turned to David Hautville. "Guess you'd better take your +gal home," he said, his red, bristling cheeks broad with laughter. +"Guess she's kind of off her balance, she feels so bad about her +beau." + +David's black eyes flashed haughtily at Jonas Hapgood, who +straightened his face suddenly. He deigned not a word to him, but he +turned to his daughter with a stern air. "Whether it is one way, or +whether it is the other way," said he, "we go neither by staying +here. Come home." + +"I won't go!" + +David looked sharply at his daughter's face. Jonas Hapgood's doubt +was over him too. He wondered, with a great spasm of wrath, if she +could be accusing herself to shield this man who had played her +false. + +He grasped her arm again. "Come," he said, "I'll have no more of +this," and Madelon went out with her father. Full of spirit as she +was, she had always been strangely docile with him. He had ruled all +his children with a firm hand from their youth up, and tuned their +wills to suit his ear as he did his viol strings. + +"I'll have no foolery," he said to her, gruffly, when they were out +on the road. "I'll have no putting yourself in the wrong to save a +man that's given you the go-by. If ye be fooling me, ye can stop it +now if you're a daughter of mine." He shook his head fiercely at +her. + +But Madelon answered him with a burst of wrath that equalled his own. +"I stabbed him because I took him for the man who jilted me a-trying +to kiss me, with Dorothy Fair's kiss on his lips. _Me!_" she cried; +and she raised her hand as if she would have struck again had Burr +Gordon and his false lips been there. + +Her father looked at her gloomily, then strode on with his eyes on +the snowy ground. He was still in doubt. David Hautville had that +primitive order of mind which distrusts and holds in contempt that +which it cannot clearly comprehend, and he could not comprehend +womankind. His sons were to him as words of one syllable in straight +lines; his daughter was written in compound and involved sentences, +as her mother had been before her. Fond and proud of Madelon as he +was, and in spite of his stern anxiety, her word had not the weight +with him that one of his son's would have had. It was as if he had +visions of endless twistings and complexities which might give it the +lie, and rob it, at all events, of its direct force. + +Indeed, Madelon strengthened this doubt by crying out passionately +all at once, as they went on: "Father, you must believe me! I tell +you I did it! I--don't let them hang him! Father!" All Madelon's +proud fierceness was gone for a moment. She looked up at her father, +choking with great sobs. + +David smiled down at her convulsed face. "She's nothing but a woman," +he thought to himself, and he thought also, with a throb of angry +relief, that she had not killed Lot Gordon. "Come along home and red +up the house, and let's have no more fooling," he said, roughly, and +strode on faster and would not say another word, although Madelon +besought him hard to assure her that he believed her, and that Burr +should not be hanged, until they reached the Hautville house. Then he +turned on her and said, with keen sarcasm that stung more than a +whip-lash, "'Tis Parson Fair's daughter and not mine that should come +down the road in broad daylight a-bawling for Burr Gordon." + +Madelon started back, and her face stiffened and whitened. She shut +her mouth hard and followed her father into the house. The great +living-room was empty; indeed, not one of the Hautville sons was in +the house; even Louis was gone. David took his axe out of the corner +and set out for the woods to cut some cedar fire-logs. Madelon put +the house in order, setting the kitchen and pantry to rights, going +through the icy chambers and making the high feather beds. In her own +room she paused long and searched again, holding up her red cloak and +her ball dress to the window, where they caught the wintry light, for +a stain of blood that might prove her guilt; but she could find none. + +Madelon prepared dinner for her father and brothers as usual, and +when it was ready to be dished she stood in the doorway, with the +north wind buffeting her in the face, and blew the dinner-horn with a +blast that could be heard far off in the woods. + +Presently her father emerged from under the snowy boughs with his axe +over his shoulder, and shortly afterwards Eugene and Abner came, in +Indian file, with their guns. Eugene was carrying a fat rabbit by its +long ears. Louis and Richard did not come at all. David asked sternly +of their brothers where they were, but neither Eugene nor Abner knew. +They had not seen them since David and Madelon left for Lot Gordon's +that morning. + +Madelon set the food before her father and her brothers, and took her +place as usual, and ate as she might have filled a crock with milk or +cakes, tasting nothing which she put into her mouth. She did not +during the meal say another word concerning the tragedy in which she +was living, but there was a strange silent vehemence and fire about +her which seemed louder than speech. Now and then her father and her +brothers started and stared at her as if she had cried out. Two red +spots had come on her brown cheeks; her eyes were glittering with +dark light; her lips were a firm red; her fingers stiffened with +nervous clutches. She looked as if every muscle in her were strained +and rigid for a leap. + +After dinner Eugene and Abner went out again with their guns, and +David smoked his old pipe by the fire, while Madelon put away the +dishes and swept the floor. When her work was finished the pipe was +smoked out, and David rose up slowly, clapped his fur cap over his +white head, and took up his axe. + +"Mind ye say what ye said this morning to nobody else," he said, as +he went out the door. + +"I'll say it with my dying breath," returned Madelon, and she caught +her breath, as if it were indeed her last, as she spoke. + +"Accuse yourself of murder, would ye, and be hung, and leave your own +kith and kin with nobody to keep house for them, for the sake of a +man that's left ye for another girl!" + +"Father, I tell you that _I_ did it!" + +But David clapped to the door on her speech, and the awful truth of +it seemed to smite her in her own face. + +Madelon went up-stairs, and brushed and braided her black hair before +her glass; but the face therein did not look like her own to her, and +she felt all the time as if she were braiding and wreathing the hair +around another's head. One of those deeds had she committed which +lead a man to see suddenly the stranger that abides always in his +flesh and in his own soul, and makes him realize that of all the +millions of earth there is not one that he knows not better than his +own self, nor whose face can look so strange to him in the light of +his own actions. + +Madelon put her red cloak over her shoulders as she might have put it +on a lay-figure, and tied on her hood. Then she went down-stairs, out +of the house to the barn, and put the side-saddle on the roan mare. + +Not another woman in the village, and scarcely a man except the +Hautville sons, would have dared to ride this roan, with the backward +roll of her vicious eyes and her wicked, flat-laid ears; but Madelon +Hautville could not be thrown. + +The mare, when she was saddled, danced an iron-bound dance in the +barn bay, but Madelon bade her stand still, and she obeyed, her +nostrils quivering, the breath coming from them in a snort of smoke, +and every muscle under her roan hide vibrating. + +Then Madelon placed her foot in the stirrup, and was in the saddle, +pulling the bit hard against the jaw, and the mare shot out of the +barn with a fierce lash-out of her heels and an upheaval of her gaunt +roan flanks that threatened to dash the girl's head against the +lintel of the door. + +But Madelon knew with what she had to do, and she bent low in the +saddle and passed out in safety. Then she spared not the mare for +nigh three miles on the New Salem road. It was ten miles to New +Salem, and it did not take long to reach it, riding a horse who went +at times as if all the fiends were in chase, and often sprang out +like a bow into the wayside bushes, and was off with a new spurt of +vicious terror. It was still far from sundown when Madelon Hautville +tied the roan outside the jail where Burr Gordon lay. + +Burr was sitting in his cell, which was nothing but a rough chamber +with whitewashed walls and a grated window. It was furnished with a +bed, a table, and a chair. He had an inkstand and a great sheet of +paper on the table, and he was writing a letter when the bolt shot +and the jailer entered with Madelon Hautville. + +Burr looked at her with a white, incredulous face. Then he started up +and came forward, but Madelon did not look at him. She turned to the +jailer, Alvin Mead. "I want to see him alone," said she, +imperatively. + +"It's again my orders," said the jailer. He was a great man, with an +arm like a crow-bar. He was reputed to have used it as one many a +time at a house-raising. + +"I've got to see him alone!" + +"He's in here on a charge of murder, and it's again my orders," +repeated Alvin Mead, like a parrot. + +"I've got to see him alone!" + +Alvin Mead looked at her irresolutely with his stupid light eyes; +then all his great system of bone and muscle seemed to back out of +the room before her. He shut the door after him, and they heard the +bolt slide. + +Madelon turned to Burr. "Tell them," she gasped out--"tell them it +was--I!" + +Burr did not speak for a minute; he stood looking at her. "Perhaps I +am not any too much of a man," he said, slowly, at length, "but you +ask me to be a good deal less of a man than I am." + +Madelon did not seem to hear him. "I have told them I did it! I have +told them all," said she, "but they won't believe me--they won't +believe me! _You_ must tell them." + +"I will die before I will tell them," said Burr Gordon. + +Madelon looked at his white face, which was set against hers like a +rock; then she gave a great cry and fell down on her knees before +him. "Tell them," she moaned, "or they will hang you--they will hang +you, Burr!" + +"Let them hang me, then!" + +"Tell them; they won't believe me!" + +Burr caught hold of her two arms and raised her to her feet. "See +here, Madelon," said he, "don't you know--" + +She looked at him dumbly. + +"Don't you know--I would not tell them if they would, but--I might +tell them until I was gray, and they would not believe me!" + +Madelon cried out sharply, as if she in her turn had been struck to +the heart. + +"It is true," Burr said, quietly. + +"Then if he dies without telling, there is no way of--saving you--" + +Burr shook his head. + +"The knife--how--came your knife there instead of Richard's?" + +Burr smiled. + +Bluish shadows came around Madelon's dark eyes and her mouth. She +gasped for breath as she spoke. "I--have--killed you, then," said +she. Suddenly she put up her white, stiffly quivering lips to Burr's. +"Kiss me!" she cried out. "I beg you to give me the kiss that I might +have killed you for last night!" + +Burr bent down and kissed her, and she threw her arms around him and +pressed his head to her bosom. "They shall not," she cried out, +fiercely--"they shall not hang you! I will make them believe me! +Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, Burr." + +"Madelon," Burr said, huskily, "I have been double-faced and false to +you, but, as God is my witness, I'm glad I've got the chance to +suffer in your stead." + +"You shall not! They shall believe I did it. I will make Lot Gordon +tell. He shall tell before he dies!" + +The bolt slid back, and Alvin Mead's great bulk darkened the doorway. +Madelon turned her face towards him, with her arms still clasping +Burr and holding his head to her bosom. "This man is innocent!" she +cried out, with a fierce gesture of protection, as if she were +defending her young instead of her false lover. "I tell you he is +innocent--you must let him go! I am the one who stabbed Lot Gordon!" + +Alvin Mead stared; his heavy pink jaw lopped. + +"I tell you, you must let him go!" She released Burr from her arms +and gave him a push towards the door. "Go out," she said; "I am the +one to stay here." + +But Alvin Mead collected and brought about his great body with a show +of lumbering fists. "Come," said he, "this ain't a-goin to do. We +can't have no sech work as this, young woman. It's time you went." + +"Let him go, I tell you!" commanded Madelon, confronting him +fiercely. "I am going to stay." + +"They won't let you come again if you don't go quietly now," Burr +whispered, and he laid his hand on her nervous shoulder. + +"I ruther guess we won't have no sech doin's again," said Alvin Mead, +with sulky assent. + +"You must go, Madelon." + +Madelon tied on her hood. Her white face had its rigid, desperate +look again. + +"I will make them believe me yet, and you shall be set free," she +said to Burr, with a stern nod, and passed out, while Alvin Mead +stood back to give her passage, watching her with sullen and wary +eyes. He was, in truth, half afraid of her. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +When Madelon, returning from New Salem, came in sight of her home the +first thing which she noticed was her father in the yard in front of +the house. + +David Hautville's great figure stood out in the dusk of the snowy +landscape like a giant's. He was motionless. The roan mare's gallop +had evidently struck his ear some time before, and he knew that +Madelon was returning. He did not even look her way as she drew +nearer, but when she rode into the yard he made a swift movement +forward and seized the mare by the bridle. She reared, but Madelon +sat firm, with wretched, undaunted eyes upon her father. David +Hautville's eyes blazed back at her out of the whiteness of his +wrath. + +"Where have you been?" he demanded, in a thick voice. + +"To New Salem." + +"What for?" + +"To see Burr, and beg him to confess that I killed Lot." + +"You didn't." + +"I did." + +"Fool!" David Hautville jerked the bridle so fiercely that the mare +reared far back again. He jerked her down to her feet, and she made a +vicious lunge at him, but he shunted her away. + +"I'll fasten you into your chamber," he shouted, "if this work goes +on! I'll stop your making a fool of yourself." + +"It is Lot Gordon that is making fools of you all," said Madelon, in +a hard, quiet voice. + +"Did Burr Gordon say he didn't stab him?" cried her father. + +"No; he wouldn't own it. He is trying to shield me." + +"He did it himself, and he'll hang for it." + +"No, he won't hang for what I did while I draw the breath of life. +I've got the strength of ten in me. You don't know me, if I am your +daughter." Madelon freed her bridle with a quick movement, and the +mare flew forward into the barn. + +David Hautville stood looking after her in utter fury and +bewilderment. Her last words rang in his ears and seemed true to him. +He felt as if he did not know his own daughter. This awakening and +lashing into action, by the terrible pressure of circumstances, of +strange ancestral traits which he had himself transmitted was beyond +his simple comprehension. He shook his head with a fierce +helplessness and went into the barn. + +"Go in and get the supper," he ordered, "and _I_'ll take care of the +mare." + +As Madelon came out of the stall he grasped her roughly by the arm +and peered sharply into her face. The thought seized him that she +must surely not be in her right mind--that Burr's treatment of her +and his danger had turned her brain. "Be you crazy, Madelon?" he +asked, in his straightforward simplicity, and there was an accent of +doubt and pity in his voice. + +"No, father," she replied, "I am not crazy. Let me go." + +She broke away from him and was out of the barn door, but suddenly +she turned and came running back. The sudden softness in his voice +had stirred the woman in her to weakness. She went close to her +father, and threw up her arms around his great neck, and clung to +him, and sobbed as if she would sob her soul away, and pleaded with +him as for her life. + +"Father!" she cried--"father, help me! Believe me! Tell them I did +it! Tell them it is true! Don't let them hang Burr. Help me to save +him, father! Don't let them! Save him! Oh, you will save him, father? +You will? Tell me, father--tell me, tell me!" Madelon's voice rose +into a wild shriek. + +A sudden conviction of his solution of the matter and of his own +astuteness came over David Hautville's primitive masculine +intelligence. His daughter was wellnigh distraught with her lover's +faithlessness and his awful crime and danger. She was to be watched +and guarded lest she make a further spectacle of herself; but treated +softly as might be, for she was naught but a woman, and liable to +mischievous ailments of nerve and brain. David pressed his daughter's +dark head with his hard, tender hand against his shoulder, then +forced her gently away from him. + +"It'll be all right," said he, soothingly--"it'll be all right. Don't +you worry." + +"Father, you will?" + +"I'll fix it all right. Don't you worry." + +"Father, you promise?" + +"I'll do everything I can. Don't you worry, Madelon. You'd better go +in and get supper now. I'll go along to the house with you and get +the lantern. It's getting too dark to do the work here." + +David drew his daughter along, out of the barn, across the snowy yard +to the house, she pleading frantically all the way, he soothing her +with his sudden wisdom of assent and evasion. + +The hearth fire was blazing high when Madelon entered the kitchen. +The red glare of it was on her white face, upturned to her father's +with one last pleading of despair. She clutched his arm and shook his +great frame to and fro. + +"Father, promise me you'll go over to New Salem to-night and tell +them to set him free and take me instead! Father!" + +"We'll see about it, Madelon," answered David Hautville. There was a +tone in his voice which she had never heard before. It might have +come unconsciously to himself from some memory, so old that it was +itself forgotten, of his dead wife's voice over the child in her +cradle. Some echo of it might have yet lingered in the old father's +soul, through something finer than his instinct for sweet sounds from +human throat and viol--through his ear for love. + +"Get the supper now, and we'll see about it," said David Hautville. +He began fumbling with clumsy fingers, all unused to women's gear, at +the string of this daughter's cloak; but she pulled herself away from +him suddenly, and the old hard lines came into her face. "We'll say +no more about it," said she. She lit a candle quickly at the hearth +fire, and was out of the room to put away her cloak and hood. Her +father lighted his lantern slowly and went back to the barn, plodding +meditatively through the snowy track, with the melting mood still +strong upon him. He was disposed to carry matters now with a high and +tender hand with the girl to bring her to reason, and he brought all +his crude diplomacy to bear upon the matter. + +When he reached the barn his son Eugene stood in the doorway. He had +just come from the woods, and the smell of wounded cedar-trees was +strong about him. He stood leaning upon his axe as if it were a +staff. "Who's been out with the mare?" he asked. + +"Your sister." + +"Where?" + +"To New Salem." + +"To see _him_?" + +David nodded grimly. His lantern cast a pale circle of light on the +snow about them. + +"About--that?" + +"To get him to own up she did it." + +Eugene Hautville stared at his father, scowling his handsome dark +brows. He was the most graceful mannered of all the Hautville sons, +and by some accounted the best-looking. + +"Is she crazy?" he said. + +"No, she's a woman," returned his father, with a strange accent of +contempt and toleration. + +"Did the coward lay it to her when she gave him the chance?" demanded +Eugene. + +"No; she said he wouldn't, to shield her." + +Eugene moved his axe suddenly; the lantern-light struck it, and there +was a bright flash of sharp steel in their eyes. "Shield her!" he +cried out, with an oath. "I wish I could meet him in the path once. +I'd give him a taste before they put the rope 'round his neck, the +lying murderer!" + +David nodded his head in savage assent. + +"What's going to be done with Madelon?" cried Eugene, fiercely. + +"I've been thinking--" said his father, slowly. + +"No sister of mine shall go about rolling herself in the dust at that +fellow's feet if I can help it." + +"I've been thinking--would you lock her in her chamber a spell?" + +"Lock Madelon in her chamber! She'd get out or she'd beat her brains +out against the wall." + +"I don't know but she would," assented David, perplexedly. "You can't +count on a woman when they rise up. She might go away a spell." + +"Where?" + +"We might send her somewhere." + +Eugene laughed. The roan mare was pawing in her stall. Now and then +she pounded the floor with a clattering thud like an iron flail. + +"How far do you suppose that mare would go if you tried to send her +anywhere?" he asked. + +"Maybe Madelon wouldn't go." + +"You'd have to halter the mare," said Eugene, "and drag her half the +way and stand from under, or she'd trample you down the other." +Eugene, although his words were strong, spoke quite softly, lowering +his sweet tenor. From where they stood they could see Madelon moving +to and fro behind the kitchen windows preparing supper. + +"I don't know what to do," said David, after a pause. + +"Watch her," returned Eugene, quietly. + +"Watch her?" + +"Yes. I've been under cover days before now watching for a pretty +white fox or a deer I wanted." Eugene laughed pleasantly. + +"Will you?" + +"I'll stay by the house to-morrow. She sha'n't go about accusing +herself of murder to save the man that's jilted her if I can help +it." As he spoke Eugene's handsome face darkened again vindictively. +He hated Burr Gordon for another reason of his own that nobody +suspected. + +Suddenly Abner Hautville came running into the yard. "Who is it +there?" he called out. "Is that you, father? That you, Eugene? +Hello!" + +"Hello!" Eugene called back. "What's the matter?" + +Abner come panting alongside. He had run from the village, and, +vigorous as he was, breath came hard in the thin air. It was a very +cold night. + +"Where have they gone?" he demanded. + +"Who?" + +"Louis and Richard. Where have they gone?" + +There was a ghastly look in Abner's face, in spite of the glowing red +which the cold wind had brought to it. The other man seemed to catch +it and reflect it in their own faces as they stared at him. + +Eugene turned quickly to his father. "Aren't they in the house?" he +asked. + +"No, they ain't," returned David, with his eyes still on Abner's +face. + +"Sure they ain't up chamber?" + +"No; I was home a good half-hour before Madelon came. There wasn't a +soul in the house, and nobody could have come home since without my +knowing it." + +"They didn't come home this noon either," said Eugene. + +"Thought you said they'd gone to see to their traps on West +Mountain?" David rejoined. + +"Thought they had when they didn't come." Eugene turned impatiently +on Abner. "Where do you think they've gone--what do you mean by +looking so?" he cried. + +Abner dug his heel into the snow. "Don't know," he returned, in a +surly voice. + +"What do you suspect, then? Good God! can't you speak out?" + +Abner's features were heavier than his brother's--his speech and +manner slower. He paused a second, even then; then he turned towards +the house, and spoke, with his face away from them, with a curious +directness and taciturnity. "Didn't go to the traps on West +Mountain," he said, then; "went there myself. They hadn't been +there--no tracks; was home before father was to-night. Louis and +Richard hadn't come. Went down to the village; hadn't been there." + +"You don't mean Louis and Richard have run away?" demanded David. + +"Both their guns and their powder-horns and shot-bags are gone," said +Abner. + +"They would have taken them anyway," said Louis. + +"The chest in Louis's chamber is unlocked and the money he kept in +the till is gone, and his fiddle is gone, and the cider-brandy and +wormwood bottle to bathe his arm with, and two shoulders of pork out +of the cellar, and a sack of potatoes, and the blankets off his and +Richard's beds are gone too," said Abner. He began to move towards +the house. + +His father made a bound after him and grasped his arm. "What do you +mean?" he cried out. "What do you think they've run away for?" + +"Know as much as I do," replied Abner. He wrenched his arm away and +strode on towards the house. Then David Hautville and his son Eugene +stood looking at each other with a surmise of horror growing in their +eyes. + +"What does he mean?" David whispered, hoarsely. + +Eugene shook his head. + +Presently Eugene went into the barn and fell to feeding the roan +mare, and David plunged heavily back to the house. He and Abner sat +one on each side of the fire and furtively watched Madelon preparing +supper. + +She spoke never a word. Her red lips were a red line of resolution. +Her despairing eyes were fixed upon her work without a glance for +either of them. + +However, when supper was set on the table, and she had blown the horn +at the door and waited, and nobody else came, she turned with sudden +life upon her father and her brothers, who had already begun to taste +the smoking hasty-pudding. "Where are the others?" she cried out, +shrilly. "Where are Louis and Richard?" + +The men glanced at one another under sullen eyelids, but nobody +answered. "Where are they?" she repeated. + +"You know as much about it as we do," Eugene said, then, in his soft +voice. + +Madelon stood with wild eyes flashing from one to another. Then she +gave a sudden spring out of the room, and they heard her swift feet +on the chamber-stairs. The men ate their hasty-pudding, bending their +brows over it as if it were a witches' mess instead of their ordinary +home fare. + +Madelon came back so rapidly that she seemed to fly over the stairs. +They scarcely heard the separate taps of her feet. She burst into the +room and faced them in a sort of fury. "They have gone!" she gasped +out. "Louis and Richard have gone! Where are they?" + +David Hautville slowly shook his head. Then he took another spoonful +of pudding. The brothers bent with stern assiduity over their bowls. + +"You have hid them away!" shrieked Madelon. "You have hid them away +lest Louis own that he saw blood on my hand, and Richard that he gave +me his knife! What have you done with them?" + +Not one of the three men spoke. They swallowed their pudding. + +"Father! Abner! Eugene!" said Madelon, "tell me what you have done +with my brothers, who can testify that I killed Lot Gordon, and save +Burr?" + +David Hautville wiped his mouth on his sleeve, rose up, and took his +daughter firmly by the arm. + +"We know no more what has become of your brothers than you do," said +he. "If they have gone away for the reason you say, your old father +would be the first to bring them back, if you were guilty as you say, +daughter of mine though you be. But we know well enough, wherever +your brothers have gone, and for whatever cause they have gone, that +you have done nothing worse then go daft, as women will, to shield a +fellow that's used you ill. You shall put us to no more shame while I +am your father and you under my roof. Abner, fill up a bowl with the +pudding." + +Madelon's face was deathly white and full of rebellion as she looked +up in her father's, but she held herself still with a stern dignity +and did not struggle. David Hautville's will was up. His hand on her +soft arm was like a vise of steel. The memories of her childhood were +strong upon her. She knew of old that there was no appeal, and was +too proud to contend where she must yield. + +"Take the bowl," said her father, when Abner extended it filled with +the steaming pudding--"take the bowl, and go you to your chamber. Eat +your supper, and get in to your bed and stay there till morning." + +Madelon still looked at her father with that same look of speechless +but unyielding rebellion. She did not stir to take the bowl or go to +her chamber. + +"Do as I bid ye!" ordered her father, in a great voice. + +Madelon took the bowl from her brother's hand and went out of the +room as she was bid; and yet as she went they all knew that there was +no yielding in her. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +The next morning Madelon came down-stairs as usual and prepared +breakfast. When it was ready the family sat up to the table and ate +silently and swiftly. No one addressed a word to Madelon. After +breakfast David and his son Abner put on their leather jackets and +their fur caps, and set forth for the woods with their axes, but +Eugene lounged gracefully over to the hearth and sat down on the +settle, and began reading his Shakespeare book. Eugene was the only +one of the Hautvilles who ever read books. He studied faithfully the +few in the house--the Shakespeare, the _Pilgrim's Progress_, Milton, +and _Gulliver's Travels_. The others wondered at him. They could not +understand how any one who could handle a gun or a musical instrument +could lay finger on a book. "Made-up things," said Abner once, with a +scornful motion towards Shakespeare. + +"No more made-up than fugue," retorted Eugene, hotly; but they all +cried out on him. + +This morning Madelon cast one quick glance at him as he sauntered +over to the settle with his book. Then she did not look his way +again. She worked quietly, setting the kitchen to rights. + +The day was very cold; the light in the room was dim and white, the +windows were coated so thickly with the hoar-frost. Eugene kept +stirring the fire and adding sticks as he read. + +Finally, Madelon had finished her work in the kitchen, and went +up-stairs. Then Eugene arose reluctantly, went out into the cold +entry, and stood by the door with his book in hand. Madelon, passing +across the landing above, looked down and saw him standing there, and +knew that what she suspected was true--that her brother was mounting +guard over her lest she leave the house. + +She finished her work in the chamber, and came down-stairs with some +knitting-work in hand. She seated herself quietly in her own +cushioned rocking-chair, and fell to work with yarn and clicking +needles, like any peaceful housewife. She knitted and Eugene read, +bending his handsome dark face, smiling with pleasure, over his +Shakespeare book. This fierce winter day he was reading "A +Midsummer-Night's Dream," and letting his fancy revel with +Shakespeare's fairies in an enchanted summer wood. He was, however, +alert as a watch-dog. He could at an instant's warning leave that +delicate and dainty crew and those flowery shores, and intercept his +sister, should she attempt to pass him and escape from the house. + +Still, his alertness all came to naught, for Madelon, like some +fleeing fox, took a sudden turn which no canny hunter could have +anticipated. She sat somewhat away from the hearth and well at +Eugene's back. He would have asked her why she did not draw nearer +the fire and if she were not cold had he not feared to encounter a +sulky humor. He could not see the lengths of linen cloth, which she +herself had spun and woven, lying in a great heap on the floor, half +at her back, half under her petticoats. However, could he have seen +it he would have thought of it merely as some mysterious domestic and +feminine proceeding about which he neither knew nor cared to know +anything. + +Madelon, as she knitted, ever measured the distance between her +brother and herself with her great black eyes, training her nerves +and muscles for what she had to do as she would have trained a bow +and arrow. + +Eugene turned a leaf in his Shakespeare book. Madelon made a leap, so +soft and swift that it seemed like an onslaught of Silence itself, +and he was smothered and wound about and entangled in folds of linen +as if it had been in truth his winding-sheet. He struggled as best he +might against his linen bands, and cried out as angrily as he could +for the linen that bound his mouth and his eyes, but he could not +release himself. Eugene was strong and lithe, but Madelon was nearly +as strong as he at any time; and now the great tension of her nerves +seemed to inform all her muscles with the strength of steel wire. + +Eugene sat bound hard and fast to the settle, with his face swathed +like a mummy's, with only enough space clear for breath. "Let me go, +or I'll--" he threatened, in his smothered tone. + +Madelon made no reply. She watched him struggle to be sure that he +could not free himself. Then she went out of the room. Eugene called +after her in a choke of fury, but she spoke not a word. + +Up-stairs she hastened to her own chamber, and put on her red cloak +and hood, and was down the stairs again, out the door, and hurrying +up the road to the village. From time to time she glanced behind her +to be sure that her brother had not freed himself, and was not in +pursuit; then she sped on faster. The road was glare with ice, but +she did not slow her pace for that. She was as sure-footed as a hare. +She kept her arms close to her sides under her red cloak, and did not +pause until she came out on the village street where the houses were +thick. Then she went at a rapid walk, still glancing sharply behind +her to see if she were followed, until she came to Parson Fair's +house. She went up the front walk, between the rows of ice-coated +box, and up the stone steps under the stately columned porch, and +raised the knocker and let it fall with sharp impetus. The door +opened speedily a little way, and Parson Fair himself stood there, +his pale, stern old face framed in the dark aperture. He bowed with +gentle courtesy and bade her good-morning, and Madelon courtesied +hurriedly and spoke out her errand with no preface. + +"Can I see your daughter, sir?" said she. + +Parson Fair looked at Madelon's white face, touched on the cheeks and +lips with feverish red, at her set mouth and desperate eyes. The +story of her connection with the Gordon tragedy had not penetrated to +his study, neither did he know how Burr had forsaken her for his +Dorothy; but he saw something was amiss with her, although he was not +well versed in the signs of a woman's face. Parson Fair, moreover, +felt somewhat of interest in this Madelon Hautville, for he had a +decorously restrained passion for sweet sounds which she had often +gratified. Many a Sabbath day had he sat in his beetling pulpit and +striven to keep his mind fixed upon the spirit of the hymn alone, in +spite of his leaping pulses, when Madelon's great voice filled the +meeting-house. It was probable that he also, notwithstanding his +Christian grace, shared somewhat the popular sentiments towards these +musical and Bohemian Hautvilles; yet he looked with a dignified +kindness at the girl. + +"I trust you are not ill," he said, without answering her question as +to whether she might see Dorothy. + +Madelon did not act as if she heard what he said. "Can I see your +daughter, sir?" she repeated. She cast an anxious glance over her +shoulder for fear Eugene might appear in the road. + +Parson Fair still eyed her with perplexity. "I believe Dorothy is ill +in her chamber," he said, hesitatingly. "I do not know--" + +Madelon gave a dry sob. "I beg you to let me see her for a minute, +sir," she gasped out, "for the love of God. It is life and death!" + +Parson Fair looked shocked and half alarmed. He had not had to do +with women like this, who spoke with such fervor of passion. His +womankind had swathed all their fiercer human emotions with shy +decorum and stern modesty, as Turkish women swathe their faces with +veils. + +Madelon, still under the fear of Eugene, pressed inside the door as +she spoke, and he stood aside half involuntarily. "I beg you to let +me see her," she repeated. She looked at the stately wind of the +stairs up to the second floor, as if she were minded to ascend +without bidding to Dorothy's chamber. + +"She is ill in her chamber," the Parson said again, with a kind of +forbidding helplessness. + +"I would see her only for a minute. I beg you to let me, sir. It is +life and death, I tell you--it is life and death!" + +Whether Parson Fair motioned her to ascend, or whether he simply +stood aside to allow her to pass, he never knew, but Madelon was up +the winding stairs with a swirl of her cloak, as if the wind had +caught it. Parson Fair followed her, and motioned her to the south +front chamber, and was about to rap on the door when it was flung +open violently, and the great black princess stood there, scowling at +them. + +"I have a guest here for your mistress," said Parson Fair; but the +black woman blocked his way, speaking fast in her wrathful gibberish. + +However, at a stately gesture from her master she stood aside, and he +held the door open, and Madelon entered. "You had better not remain +long, to tire her," said the parson, and closed the door. Immediately +the uncouth savage voice was raised high again, and quelled by the +parson's calm tone. Then there was a great settling of a heavy body +close to the threshold. The black woman had thrown herself at the +sill of her darling's door, to keep watch, like a faithful dog. + +Madelon Hautville, when she entered Dorothy Fair's room, had her mind +not been fixed upon its one end, which was above all such petty +details of existence, might well have looked about her. No such +dainty maiden bower was there in the whole village as this. Madelon's +own chamber, carpetless and freezing cold, with its sparse furniture +and scanty sweep of white curtains across the furred windows which +filled the room with the blue-white light of frost, was desolation to +it. + +A great fire blazed on Dorothy Fair's chamber hearth. The red glow of +it was over the whole room, and the frost on the windows was melting. +Curtains of a soft blue-and-white stuff, said to have been brought +from overseas, hung at Dorothy's windows and between the high posts +of her bed. She had also her little rocking-chair and footstool +frilled and cushioned with it. There was a fine white matting on her +floor, and a thick rug with a basket of flowers wrought on it beside +her bed. The high white panel-work around Dorothy's mantel was carved +with curving garlands and festoons of ribbon and flowers, and on the +shelf stood tall china vases and bright candlesticks. Dorothy's +dressing-table had a petticoat of finest dimity, trimmed with tiny +tassels. Above it hung her fine oval mirror, in a carved gilt frame. +Upon the table were scattered silver and ivory things and glass +bottles, the like of which Madelon had never seen. The room was full +of that mingled perfume of roses and lavender which was always about +Dorothy herself. + +The counterpane on Dorothy's bed was all white and blue, and quilted +in a curious fashion, and her pillows were edged with lace. In the +midst of this white-and-blue nest, her slender little body half +buried in her great feather-bed, her lovely yellow locks spreading +over her pillow, lay Dorothy Fair when Madelon entered. She half +raised herself, and stared at her with blue, dilated eyes, and shrank +back with a little whimper of terror when she came impetuously to her +bedside. + +"You don't believe it," Madelon said, with no preface. + +Dorothy stared at her, trembling. "You mean--" + +"I mean you don't believe he killed him! You don't believe Burr +Gordon killed his cousin Lot!" + +Dorothy sank weakly back on her pillows. Great tears welled up in her +blue eyes and rolled down her soft cheeks. "They _saw_ him there," +she sobbed out, "and they found his knife. Oh, I didn't think he was +so wicked!" + +Madelon caught her by one slender arm hard, as if she would have +shaken her. "_You_ believe it!" she cried out. "You believe that Burr +did it--_you!_" + +"They--saw--him--there," moaned Dorothy, with a terrified roll of her +tearful eyes at Madelon's face. + +"_Saw him there!_ What if they did see him there? What if the whole +town saw him? What if you saw him? What if you saw him strike the +blow with your own eyes? Wouldn't you tear them out of your own head +before you believed it? Wouldn't you cut your own tongue out before +you'd bear witness against him?" + +Dorothy sobbed convulsively. + +"I would," said Madelon. + +Dorothy hid her face away from her in the pillow. + +Madelon laid her hand on her fair head, and turned it with no gentle +hand. "Listen to me now," she said. "You've got to listen. You've got +to hear what I say. You ought to believe without being told, without +knowing anything about it, that he's innocent, if you're a woman and +love him; but I'm going to tell you. Burr Gordon didn't kill his +cousin Lot. I did!" + +Dorothy gave a faint scream and shrank away from her. + +"I did!" repeated Madelon. "Now do you believe he's innocent, when +somebody else has told you?" + +Dorothy's face was white as her pillows, her eyes big with terror. +There was a soft thud against her door. The black woman was keeping +arduous watch. + +"You couldn't!" Dorothy gasped out. + +"I could! Look at my hands; they are as strong as a man's." + +"You--couldn't!" + +"I could, and I did." + +Dorothy shook her head in hysterical doubt. + +"Listen," said Madelon--"listen. I'll tell you why I did it, Dorothy +Fair. Burr Gordon had been with me a little before he went with you. +Perhaps you knew it. If you did, I am not blaming you--he's got +taking ways, you couldn't help it; and I am not blaming him--he's a +man, and you're fairer complexioned than I am. But I was fool enough +to be mad without any good reason--you understand I am not saying +anything against him, Dorothy Fair--when I saw him with you at the +ball. He had a right to take anybody to the ball that he chose. It +was naught to me, but I was mad. I have a quick temper. And I started +home when that young man from Kingston offered to fiddle for the +dancing after you and Burr went out; and my brother Richard made me +take his knife for fear I might meet stragglers, and I had it open +under my cloak. And when I got to that lonely part of the road, after +the turn, I saw somebody coming, and I thought it was Burr. He walked +like him. And I looked away--I did not want to see his face; and when +I came up to him the first thing I knew he threw his arm around me +and kissed me, and--something seemed to leap up in me and I struck +with Richard's knife. And--then he fell down, and I looked and it was +not Burr--it was his cousin Lot. And--then Burr came, and we heard +whistling, and others were coming, and he made me run, and the others +came up and found him; and now they say he did it and not I. It was I +who stabbed Lot Gordon, Dorothy Fair!" + +"It was Burr's knife, with his initials cut in the handle, that they +found," said Dorothy, with a kind of piteous doggedness. There was in +this fair little maiden the same power of adherence to a mental +attitude which her father had shown in his religious tenets. Wherever +the men and women of this family stood they were fixed beyond their +own capability of motion. + +Madelon gave a bewildered sigh. "I know not how that was," said she, +"unless--" a red flush mounted over her whole face. "No, he would not +have done that for me," she said, as if to herself. + +A red flush on Dorothy's face seemed to respond to that on Madelon's. +"You think he put his knife there to take suspicion from you?" she +cried out, quickly. + +Madelon shook her head. "I don't know about the knife," she said, +"but I know I stabbed Lot Gordon." + +"He would not have done that," said Dorothy, with troubled, angry +blue eyes on her face. "He would have thought of--others. He never +changed the knife, Madelon Hautville!" + +"I know nothing about the knife," repeated Madelon, "but Burr Gordon +did not kill his cousin." + +"He was there, and it was his knife," said Dorothy. There was now a +curious indignation in her manner. It was almost as if she preferred +to believe her lover guilty of murder rather than unduly solicitous +for her rival. + +Madelon Hautville turned upon her with a kind of fierce solemnity. +"Dorothy Fair," said she, "look at me!" and the soft, blue-eyed face, +full of that gentle unyielding which is the firmest of all, looked up +at her from the pillows--"Dorothy Fair, did that man, who's locked up +over there in jail in New Salem, for a crime he's innocent of, ever +kiss you?" + +Madelon's face seemed to wax stiff and white. She looked like one who +bared her breast for a mortal hurt as she spoke. Dorothy went pink to +the roots of her yellow hair and the frill on her nightgown. She made +an angry shamed motion of her head, which might have signified +anything. + +"And you can believe this thing of him after that!" said Madelon, +with a look of despairing scorn. "He has kissed you, Dorothy Fair, +and you can think he has committed a murder!" + +Dorothy gasped. "They said--" she began again. + +"_They said!_ Are you a woman, Dorothy Fair, and don't you know that +the man you love enough to let him kiss you should do no wrong in +your eyes, or else it's a shame to you, and you should kill him to +wipe it out?" Dorothy shrank away from her in the bed, her +frightened blue eyes staring at her over her shoulder. "My God! don't +you know," said Madelon, "the man you love is yourself? When you +believe in his guilt you believe in your own; when you strike him for +it you strike yourself. Don't you know that, Dorothy Fair?" + +Dorothy looked at her, all white and trembling. She gave a half-sob. +Suddenly Madelon's tone changed. "Don't be afraid," said she. "I'm +different from you. I don't wonder he liked you better. It's no blame +to him. I know you care about him. You don't believe he did it." + +"I don't know," sobbed Dorothy. The door opened a crack, and the +black woman's watchful eyes appeared. + +"Oh, you do know, you do know! I tell you, I did it--I! Can't you +believe me? I'm a wicked woman, and I love anybody I love in a +different way from any that a woman as good as you are can. I did it, +Dorothy, and not Burr! He mustn't suffer for it. We must see him, you +and I together! Don't you believe me?" + +"I don't--know," sobbed Dorothy. The dark face appeared quite fully +in the door. Madelon cast a quick glance about the room. Dorothy's +pretty Bible, with a blue-silk-ribbon marker hanging from it, lay on +her dimity dressing-table. Madelon sprang across and got it. The +black woman stood in the doorway, muttering to herself. She looked +all ready to spring to Dorothy's defence. Madelon did not notice her +at all. She went close to Dorothy, put the Bible on the bed, and laid +her right hand upon it. + +"I swear upon this Holy Book," said she, "that this hand of mine is +the one that stabbed Lot Gordon. I swear, and I call God to witness, +and may I be struck dead as I speak if what I say is not true. Now do +you believe what I say, Dorothy Fair?" + +Dorothy looked at her and the Bible in bewildered terror. She nodded. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +Something like joy came into Madelon's face. "Then we will save him, +you and I!" she cried out. "We will save him together! He shall not +be hung! He shall be set free! They shall let him out of jail to-day, +and put me there instead. We will save him! He would not own that I +was guilty and he innocent; Lot would not own it, nor my brother +Richard, but now--we will save him--now!" + +"How?" asked Dorothy, feebly. + +"He will own it to you. Burr will own it to you if you go and plead +with him. He can't help owning it to you. And then you shall go to +Lot, and when you ask him for your sake, that you may marry Burr, if +he knows Burr has told you, and does not care about me, he will +speak. He will be sure to speak for you. Come!" + +Dorothy raised herself on one elbow and stared at Madelon, her yellow +hair falling about her fair startled face. "Where?" said she. + +"With me to New Salem." + +"To New Salem?" + +"Yes, to New Salem--to see Burr." + +"But I am ill, and the doctor has bid me stay in bed. I have been ill +ever since the ball with a headache and fever." + +"You talk about headache and fever when Burr is there in prison! I +tell you if my two feet were cut off I would walk to him on the +stumps to set him free!" + +"How can I go?" said Dorothy. Her blue eyes kindled a little under +Madelon's fiery zeal. + +"We will take your father's horse and sleigh." + +"But the horse is gone lame, and has not been used for a month." + +"I will get one from Dexter Beers at the tavern," said Madelon, +promptly. "I will lead him over here and harness him into the +sleigh." + +"My father will not let me go," said Dorothy. + +"He is a minister of the gospel--he will let his daughter go to save +a life." + +"I tell you he will not," said Dorothy. "I know my father better than +you. He will not let me go out when I am ill. It is freezing cold, +too. If I go I must go without his knowledge and consent." + +"I am going without my father's," said Madelon, shortly, "and I go at +a greater cost than that, too." + +"It's the second time I have deceived and disobeyed my father in a +week's time," Dorothy said. + +"You talk about your father when it is Burr--Burr--that's at stake!" +Madelon cried out. "What is your father to Burr if you love him? That +ought to go before anything else. It says so in your Bible--it says +so in your Bible, Dorothy Fair!" + +Dorothy, with her innocent, frightened eyes fixed upon the other +girl's passionate face, as if she were being led by her into unknown +paths, put back the coverlet and thrust one little white foot out of +bed. Then swiftly the black woman, who had entered the room, backed +against the door as stiffly as a sentinel, darted forward, and would +have thrust her mistress into bed again, making uncouth protests the +while, had not Dorothy motioned her away with a gentle dignity, which +was hers for use when she chose. + +"Go down-stairs, if you please," said she, "and see if my father is +in his study. If he is in there, and busy over his sermon, go to the +barn, and drag out the sleigh for us." + +Dorothy, white and fair as an angel, in her straight linen nightgown, +stood out on the floor, in front of her great black guardian, who +made again as though she would seize her and force her back, and +pleaded with her in a thick drone, like an anxious bee, not to go. + +"Do as I bid you!" said Dorothy, and glided past her to her dimity +dressing-table, and began combing out her yellow hair. + +The black woman went out, muttering. + +"If my father is in his study on the north side of the house, and +busy over his sermon, we can get away; otherwise we cannot," said +Dorothy, combing the thick tress over her shoulder. + +Madelon went to a south window of the room and looked out. She could +see the barn, and across the road, farther down, the tavern. She +watched while Dorothy bound up her hair, and soon she saw the black +woman run, with a low crouch of her great body like a stealthy +animal, across the yard. + +"Your father is in his study," Madelon said, quickly. "I will go over +to the tavern for a horse if yours is too lame." + +"He can scarce stand," said Dorothy. Her soft voice trembled; she +trembled all over--then was still with nervous rigors. Bright pink +spots were on her cheeks. A certain girlish daring was there in this +gentle maiden for youthful love and pleasure, else she had not stolen +away that night to the ball, but very little for tragic enterprise. +And, moreover, her fine sense of decorum and womanly pride had always +served her mainly in the place of courage, which she lacked. + +Sorely afraid was Dorothy Fair, if the truth were told, to go with +this passionate girl, who had declared to her face she had done +murder, to visit a man who she still half believed, with her helpless +tenacity of thought, was a murderer also. The love she had hitherto +felt for him was eclipsed by terror at the new image of him which her +fearful fancy had conjured up and could not yet dismiss, in spite of +Madelon's assurances. She was, too, really ill, and her delicate +nerves were still awry from the shock they had received the night of +the ball. Parson Fair had been sternly indignant, and his daughter +had quailed before him, and then had come the news concerning Burr. +Sage tea, and hot foot-baths, and the doctor's nostrums had not cured +her yet. Her very spirit trembled and fluttered at this undertaking; +but she could not withstand this fierce and ardent girl who upbraided +her with the cowardice and distrust of her love. Instinctively she +tried to raise her sentiment to the standard of the other's and +believe in Burr. + +Madelon paused a second as she went out, and gave a strange, +scrutinizing glance at her. + +"Why do you not wear your blue-silk quilted hood with the swan's-down +trimming?" said she. "It becomes you, and it is warm over your ears." + +"Yes, I will," said Dorothy, looking at her wonderingly. + +Madelon went softly out of the house, and ran across and down the +road to the tavern. Dexter Beers, the landlord, was just going around +the wide sweep of drive to the stable with a meal-sack over his +shoulder. No one else was in sight; it was so cold there were no +loafers about. Madelon ran after him, and overtook him before he +reached the stable door. + +"Can you let me take a horse?" said she, abruptly. + +Dexter Beers looked slowly around at her with a quick roll of a black +eye in a massive face. He had an enormous bulk, which he moved about +with painful sidewise motions. His voice was husky. + +"What d'ye want a horse for?" said he. + +"I want it to put in Parson Fair's sleigh." + +"What for?" + +"To take Dorothy to ride." + +"Parson's horse lame yet?" + +Madelon nodded. + +"Where's yours?" + +"I can't have him." + +Dexter Beers still moved on with curious lateral twirls of his +shoulders and heaves of his great chest, with its row of shining +waistcoat buttons. + +"Pooty cold day for a sleigh-ride," he observed, with a great steam +of breath. + +"I'll pay you well for the horse," said Madelon, in a hard voice. She +followed him into the stable. He heaved the meal-sack from his +shoulder to the floor with a grunt. Another man came forward with a +peck measure in his hand. He was young, with a frosty yellow +mustache. He had gone to school with Madelon and knew her well, but +he looked at her with uncouth shyness without speaking. Then he began +unfastening the mouth of the sack. + +Madelon stepped forward impatiently towards the horse-stalls. There +were the relay of coach-horses, great grays and bays, champing their +feed, getting ready for their sure-footed rushes over the mountain +roads when the coaches came in. She passed them by with sharp +glances. + +A man whose face was purplish red with cold was out in the rear of +the stable, rubbing down a restive bay with loud "whoas," and now and +then a stronger word and a hard twitch at the halter. He looked +curiously at Madelon as she walked up to one of the stalls. + +"Better look out for them heels!" he called out, as she drew nearer. +She paid no heed, but went straight into the stall, untied the horse, +and began to back him out. "Hi, there!" the man shouted, and Dexter +Beers and the young man came hurrying up. "Better look out for that +gal--I believe she's gone crazy!" he called out. "I can't leave this +darned beast--she'll get kicked to death if she don't look out. That +old white won't stan' a woman in the stall. Whoa, there! whoa, darn +ye! Stan' still!" + +"Hullo, what ye doin' of?" demanded Dexter Beers, coming up. + +Madelon calmly backed the horse out of his stall. "I want to hire +this horse," said she, holding his halter with a firm hand. + +"That horse?" + +"Yes. I'll pay you whatever you ask." + +Dexter Beers stared at her and the horse dubiously. "Jest as soon set +a woman to drivin' the devil as that old white," volunteered the man +who was cleaning the bay. The young man stood gaping with wonder. + +"Can I have this horse or not?" demanded Madelon. Her black eyes +flashed imperiously at Dexter Beers. Her small brown hand held the +halter of the old white with a grasp like steel. + +"Dunno 'bout your drivin' that horse," said Dexter Beers. "'Fraid +you'll get run away with. Better take another." + +"Isn't this horse the fastest you've got on a short stretch?" + +"S'pose he is, but I dunno 'bout a woman's drivin' of him." + +Madelon looked as if she were half minded to spring upon the back of +the old white and settle the matter summarily. She fairly quivered +with impatience. + +"A woman who can drive David Hautville's roan can drive this horse, +and you know it," said she. She moved forward as she spoke, leading +the high-stepping old white, and Dexter Beers stood aside. + +"Well, David Hautville's roan is nigh a match for this one," he +grunted, hesitatingly, "but then ye know your own better. Hadn't ye +better--" + +But the old white was out of the stable at a trot, with Madelon +running alongside. + +"Don't ye want a man to hitch him up?" Dexter Beers called after her; +but she was out of hearing. + +"If the gal's ekal to drivin' that horse, she's ekal to hitchin' of +him up," said the man who was cleaning the bay. "If a gal wants to +drive, let her hitch. Ye'd better let a woman go the whole figger +when she gits started, just as ye'd better give an ugly cuss of a +horse his head up hill an' down. It takes the mischief out of 'em +quicker'n anything. Let her go it, Dexter--don't ye fret." + +"I don't want her breakin' any of the parson's daughter's bones with +none of my horses," said Dexter Beers, uneasily. "Wonder where the +parson is?" + +"Let 'em go it! They won't git smashed up, I guess," said the other. +"I've seen that gal of Hautville's with that mare of his'n. She kin +drive most anythin' short of the devil, an' old white's got sense +enough to know when he's well driv, ugly's he is. He wa'n't on the +track for nothin'. He ain't no wuss, if he's as bad, as that roan +mare. Let 'em _go_ it!" + +"Wonder what's to pay?" said the young man, who had not spoken +before. + +"Dunno," said Dexter Beers. "Somethin's to pay--that girl acted +queer." + +"S'pose she takes it hard 'bout Burr Gordon. He used to fool 'round +her, I've heerd, afore he went courtin' the parson's gal." + +"Dunno--queer she's so thick with the parson's gal all of a sudden." + +"Lord, I wouldn't tech a gal that could git the upperhand of a horse +like that roan mare with a ten-foot pole," half soliloquized the man +at work over the bay. "Wouldn't have her if she owned half the +township, an' went down on her knees to me--darned if I would. Don't +want no woman that kin make horse-flesh like that knuckle under. +Guess a man wouldn't have much show; hev to take his porridge 'bout +the way she wanted to make it. Whoa, there! stan' still, can't ye? +Darned if I want nothin' to do with sech woman folks or sech horses +as ye be." + +Dexter Beers moved laboriously out to the stable door and peered +after Madelon, but she had disappeared in Parson Fair's yard. The +white horse had gone up the road at a brisk trot, but she had easily +kept pace with him. She also harnessed him into the sleigh with no +difficulty. The animal seemed docile, and as if he were to belie his +hard reputation. There was, however, a proud and nervous cant to his +old white head, and he set his jaw stiffly against his bit. + +Dorothy came out in her quilted silk pelisse and her blue hood edged +with swan's-down, and got into the sleigh. The black woman was +keeping watch at the parson's study door the while, but he never +swerved from his hard application of the doctrines. The sleigh +slipped noiselessly out of the yard and up the road, for Madelon had +not put on the bells. The old white went rather stiffly and steadily +for the first quarter-mile; then he made a leap forward with a great +lift of his lean white flanks, and they flew. + +Dorothy gave a terrified gasp. "Don't be frightened," Madelon said. +"It's the horse that used to beat everything in the county. He's old +now, but when he gets warmed up he's the fastest horse around for a +short stretch. He can't hold out long, but while he does he goes; and +I want to get a good start. I want to strike the New Salem road as +soon as I can." + +Madelon had a growing fear lest Eugene might have freed himself, and +might ride the roan across by a shorter cut, and so intercept her at +the turn into the New Salem road. He might easily suspect her of +attempting to see Burr again. If she passed the turn first she could +probably escape him if her horse held out; and, indeed, he might not +think she had gone that way if he did not see her. + +Dorothy held fast to the side of the sleigh, which seemed to rise +from the track as they sped on. "Don't be frightened," Madelon said +again. "This is the only horse in town that can beat my father's on a +short stretch, and I don't know that he can always, but I don't think +he has been used, and father's was ridden hard yesterday. I can +manage this one in harness better than I can father's. Don't be +frightened." But Dorothy's face grew pale as the swan's-down around +it, and her great blue eyes were fixed fearfully upon the bounding +heels and flanks of the old white race-horse. + +Madelon strained her eyes ahead as they neared the turn of the New +Salem road. There was nobody in sight. Then she glanced across the +fields at the right. Suddenly she swung out the reins over the back +of the old white, and hallooed, and stood up in the sleigh. + +Dorothy screamed faintly. "Sit still and hold on!" Madelon shouted. +Dorothy shut her eyes. It seemed to her she was being hurled through +space. Her slender body swung to and fro against the sleigh as she +clung frantically to it. + +Eugene Hautville, on the roan, was coming at a mad run across the +open field on the right towards the turn of the road. It seemed for a +second as if Madelon would reach it before he did; but they met +there, and the roan reared to a stop in the narrow road directly in +front of the old white, who plunged furiously. + +"Look out there!" shouted Eugene, as the sleigh tilted on the +snow-crust. The old white's temper was up at this sudden check, but +the woman behind him had a stronger will than he. She brought him to +a straining halt, and then she spoke to her brother. + +"You let us pass!" she said, sternly. + +"Where are you going?" he demanded. He looked uneasily at Dorothy as +he spoke. It was easy enough to see that she was a restraint upon +him, and that fair, timid face in its blue hood held his indignation +well in check. + +"We are going to New Salem," replied Madelon. "Let us pass." + +"I want to know what you are going for," said Eugene; and he tried to +speak with fire, but he still looked furtively at Dorothy. + +Nobody had ever suspected how that lovely face of hers had been in +his dreams, unless it had been for a time Dorothy herself. Nobody had +noticed in meeting, of a Sabbath day long since, when Dorothy had +first returned from her Boston school, sundry glances which had +passed between a pair of soft blue eyes in the parson's pew and a +pair of fiery black ones in the singing-seats. + +Dorothy, half guiltily in those days, had arranged her curls and tied +on her Sunday bonnets with a view to Eugene Hautville's eyes; and +always, when she returned from meeting, had gone straight to her +looking-glass, to be sure that she had looked fair in them. But +nobody had ever known, and scarcely she herself. + +She had come to think later that she had perhaps been mistaken, for +never had Eugene made other advances to her than by those ardent +glances; and Burr had come, and she had turned to him, and thought of +Eugene Hautville only when he crossed her way, and then with a +mixture of pique and shame. Never by any chance did her eyes meet his +nowadays of a Sabbath day, and she listened coldly to his sweet tenor +in the hymns. Now, suddenly, she looked straight up in his face and +met his eyes, and a pink flush came into her white cheeks. + +"Please to let us pass," she said, in her gentle tone, which had yet +a tincture of command in it. Any woman as fair as she, who has a +right understanding of her looking-glass, has, however soft she may +be, the instincts of a queen within her. She felt a proud resentment +for her own old folly and for Eugene's old slighting of her, and +indignation at his present attitude as she looked up at him with +sudden daring. + +Eugene threw back his head haughtily. "She wants to see Burr Gordon," +he thought, and would have died rather than let her think he would +stand in the way of it. He jerked the roan aside, and seemed as if he +would have been flung into the way-side bushes with her curving +plunge. + +"Pass, if you wish," he said, with a graceful bend in his saddle, and +was past them, riding the other way towards the village. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +When they reached the county buildings, the court-house and the jail, +in New Salem, the old race-horse was still not nearly spent, although +he breathed somewhat hard. When Madelon sprang out to blanket and tie +him he seemed to vibrate to her touch like electric steel, and showed +that the old fire had not yet died out of his nerves and muscles. + +Poor Dorothy Fair's knees were weak under her as she got out of the +sleigh. Her pretty face was pitiful, her sweet mouth drooping at the +corners like a troubled child's. + +Madelon looked at her sharply when they stood before the jail door +waiting for admittance. "I have seen you wear a curl each side of +your face outside your hood," said she. + +"I didn't think of it to-day," Dorothy replied, with forlorn +surprise. + +Madelon went close to the other girl peremptorily, as if she had been +her mother, pulled forward two soft curls from under her hood, and +arranged them becomingly against the pale cheeks; and Dorothy +submitted. + +Alvin Mead opened the jail door, and his great face took on a +forbidding scowl when he saw Madelon Hautville. + +"Can't let ye in," he said, gruffly. "Ain't a visitin' day." He +would have shut the door in their faces had not Madelon made a quick +spring against it. + +"I don't want to come in!" she cried. "I don't want to see him +to-day. It's this lady who wants to see him." + +"Can't see nobody," said Alvin Mead, filling up the door like a surly +living wedge. + +"You must let us see him," persisted Madelon. "She's Parson Fair's +daughter. She is going to marry Burr Gordon--she must see him." + +Alvin Mead shook his head stubbornly. Then Dorothy spoke, thrusting +her fair face forward, and looking up at him with terrified, innocent +pleading, like a child, and yet speaking with a gentle lady's +authority. "I beg you to let me come in, only for a few moments," +said she. "I will not make you any trouble. I will come out directly +when you bid me to." + +Alvin Mead looked at her a second, then at Madelon with rough +inquiry. "Who did ye say she was?" he growled. + +"Parson Fair's daughter, the lady that's going to marry Burr Gordon." + +"I can't let but one of ye see him, and she can't stay more'n ten +minutes," said Alvin Mead, and moved aside, and Madelon and Dorothy +entered. + +They followed Alvin Mead down the icy, dark corridor to Burr's cell +door. He unlocked it, and bade Dorothy enter. He cast a forbidding +look at Madelon. "I will stand here," she said with a strange +meekness, almost as if her heart were broken; but when the jailer +prepared to follow Dorothy into Burr's cell she caught him by the arm +and tried to force him back, and cried out sharply that he should let +her see him alone. "She is the girl he is going to marry, I tell +you!" she said. "Let them see each other alone. You cannot come +between two like that when they are in such trouble." + +Alvin Mead looked at her a second irresolutely. Then he stepped back +in the corridor and locked the cell door. "That the gal? Thought ye +was the one," he said, with a half-chuckle, with coarse, sharp eyes +upon her face. + +"He is going to marry her," Madelon repeated. She stood stiff and +straight like a statue, and waited. Once, when Alvin made an +impatient motion as though to open the door, she restrained him with +such despairing eagerness that he drew back and looked at her +wonderingly, and stood in surly silence awhile longer. + +"She's got to come out now," he said, at last. "I've got other things +to tend to. Can't stay here no longer, nohow." He unlocked the door +and threw it open with a jerk. "Time's up!" he shouted, and Dorothy +came out directly, almost as if she were running away. Alvin Mead +clapped to the door with a great jar and locked it. Madelon, had she +tried, could not have got a glimpse of Burr; but she did not try. She +sprang at Dorothy Fair, and took her by the shoulders, and looked +into her scared face with agonized questioning. + +"Did--he confess?" she gasped out. "Did--he tell you, did he--tell +you, Dorothy Fair?" + +Dorothy shook her head in a mute terror that was almost horror. It +seemed as if she would sink to the floor under Madelon's heavy hands. +Alvin Mead stood staring at them. + +"Didn't he--tell you--I was the one who--stabbed Lot? Didn't he--tell +you?" + +"She's at it again," muttered Alvin Mead. + +Dorothy shook her head. "He wouldn't speak," she said, faintly. "He +would say nothing about it." + +Madelon fairly shook her. "Couldn't you make him speak? _You!_" + +"I couldn't, I couldn't, Madelon!" + +"Did you tell him your heart would break if he didn't--that you +couldn't marry him if he didn't?" + +"Yes--don't, don't--look at me so, Madelon." + +Alvin Mead stepped forward. "Look at here--you're scarin' of that gal +to death," he interfered. "You'd better take your hands off her." + +Then Madelon turned to him, and grasped at the keys in his hands, as +if she would wrest them from him. "Unlock the door and let me in, and +let Burr Gordon out!" she demanded, wildly. + +The jailer wrested his keys away with a contemptuous jerk, and took +the skin from Madelon's hands with them. "You're crazy," he said. + +"I am not crazy! You've got an innocent man locked up in there, and +I, who am guilty and tell you so, you will not arrest. It is you who +are crazy. Let me in!" + +Alvin Mead laid a rough hand on Madelon's shoulder. "Now you look at +here, gal," said he. "I've had about all this darned nonsense I'm +a-goin' to stan'. That chap is in jail for murder, an' in jail he's +a-goin' to stay till I git orders from somebody besides you to let +him out. An' what's more, don't you come here on no sich tom-fool +arrant agin. If you do you won't git in. I ain't no objection to gals +he was goin' to marry ef he hadn't broke the laws comin' to see him a +leetle spell, if they'll go away peaceable when they're bid, but as +for havin' sech highstericky work as this, I'll be darned if I will. +Now I can't stan' here foolin' no longer; you'd better be gittin' +right along home, an' don't you break this other gal's neck with that +old stepper you've got out there." + +Madelon Hautville said not another word. She went out of the jail +quickly, and she and Dorothy were soon in the sleigh and flying down +the road. The old racer was not so old nor so weary that the impetus +of the homeward stretch failed to stir him--for a mile or so, at +least. After that his pace slackened, and then Madelon turned to the +other girl, who looked up at her with a kind of piteous defiance. +"What did you say to him?" she demanded. + +"I--begged him--if he--did not kill Lot to--say so," replied Dorothy, +faintly; then she shrank and quivered before the other girl, who +started wrathfully, half as if she would fling her from the sleigh. + +"_If_ he did not kill Lot to say so!" repeated Madelon. "_If_ he did +not! You know he did not." + +"He would not tell me so," said Dorothy, with her stubbornness of +meekness, and her blue eyes met Madelon's, although there were tears +welling up in them. + +"Tell you so!" cried Madelon. "What are you made of, Dorothy Fair?" + +"He would not," repeated Dorothy. "If he _was_ innocent, why should +he not have told me if he loved me?" + +Madelon looked at her. "You don't love him!" she cried out, sharply. +"You don't love him, and that's why. You don't love him, Dorothy +Fair!" + +Dorothy flushed red and drew herself up with gentle stiffness. "You +cannot expect me to unveil my heart to you," said she. + +"You have betrayed it," persisted Madelon. "You don't love him, +Dorothy Fair! Shame on you, after all!" + +"What right have you to say that?" demanded Dorothy, and this time +with some show of anger. + +"The right of another woman who does love him, and would save his +life," Madelon answered, fiercely. "The right of a woman who can love +more in an hour than such as you in a lifetime!" + +"You--don't know--" + +"I do know. You don't love him or you would not have distrusted him. +You would have made him tell you the truth. You would have flung your +arms around him, and you would not have let him go until he told you. +Did you do that? Answer me: did you do that?" + +A great wave of red crept over Dorothy's face, but she replied, with +cold dignity: "I throw my arms around no man unbidden!" + +"Unbidden!" repeated Madelon, and scorn seemed to sound in her voice +like the lash of a whip. She flung out the reins over the horse's +back, and they slipped along swiftly over the icy crust, and not +another word did she speak to Dorothy Fair all the way home. + + + + +Chapter X + + +When they entered Parson Fair's south yard there was a swift +disappearance of a dark face from a window, and the door was flung +open, and the grimly faithful servant-woman came forth and lifted +Dorothy out of the sleigh, crooning the while in tender and angry +gutturals. Poor Dorothy Fair shook like a white flower in a wind, for +beside the rigor of the cold, which seemed to pierce her very soul, +the chill of fever was still upon her. She chattered helplessly when +she tried to speak, and there were sobs in her throat. The black +woman half carried her into the house, and up-stairs to her own +chamber, where the hearth-fire was blazing bright. She covered her up +warm in bed, with a hot brick at her feet, and dosed her with warm +herb drinks, and coddled her, until, after some piteous weeping, she +fell asleep. + +But for Madelon Hautville there was no rest and no sleep. She felt +not the cold, and if she had fever in her veins the fierce disregard +of her straining spirit was beyond it. No knowledge of her body at +all had Madelon Hautville, no knowledge of anything on earth except +her one aim--to save her lover's life. She was nothing but a purpose +concentrated upon one end; there was in her that great impetus of the +human will which is above all the swift forces of the world when once +it is aroused. + +She unharnessed the horse quickly from the parson's sleigh, and led +him, restive again at the near prospect of his stall and feed, back +to the tavern stable, paid for him, and struck out on the homeward +road, straight and swift as one of her Indian ancestors. A group of +men in the stable door stood aside with curious alacrity to let her +pass; they stared after her, then at each other. + +"I swan!" said one. + +"Wouldn't like to be in the way when that gal was headed anywheres," +said another. + +"If that gal belonged to me I'd get her some stronger bits," said the +man who had been cleaning the bay horse when Madelon came for the +white. + +"I believe she's lost her mind," said the tavern-keeper. "It's the +last time I'll ever let her have a horse, and I told her so." There +came a blast of northwest wind which buffeted them about their faces +and chests like an icy flail, and they scattered before it, some to +their duties in the stable, some into the warm tavern for a mug of +something hot to do away with the chill. It was too cold a day to +gossip in a doorway. It was not long past noon, but the cold had +seemed to strengthen as the sun rode higher. The wind blew from the +icy northwest more frequently in fiercer gusts. Madelon Hautville +sped along before it, her red cloak flying out like a flag, and took +no thought of it at all. She was, while still in the flesh and upon +the earth, so intensified in spirit that there existed for her +consciousness neither heat nor cold. She reached the old road, the +short-cut, stretched down through the stiff white woods to her own +home; she hastened along it a little way, then she stopped and faced +back and stood irresolute. The icy wind stiffened her face, but she +did not note it. She looked back at the road with its blue +snow-furrows stretching between the desolate woods, at the spires and +roofs of the village beyond. If one followed that road to the village +and took the first one upon the right, and travelled ten miles, one +would come to the town of Kingston. + +Madelon began moving along on the road to the village, vaguely at +first, as if half in a dream, then with gathering purpose. Back she +went, in her tracks, straight to the village and the tavern stable, +and asked of Dexter Beers another horse to drive to Kingston. But he +refused her, standing before her, blocking the stable door, looking +aside with a kind of timid doggedness. "Can't let ye have another +horse to-day nohow," said he; "too cold to let 'em out." + +"I'll pay you well," said Madelon. + +"Pay ain't no object. Can't let none of 'em out but the stage-horses +in no sech weather as this." Still Dexter Beers did not look at +Madelon's stern and angry eyes; he gazed intently at a post in an icy +slant of snow in the yard on the left. + +He had the usual masculine dread of an angry woman, and, moreover, he +had a sharp-tongued wife, but he had also the masculine tenacity of a +position. He stared at the post as if his spirit held fast to it, and +braced itself against the torrent of feminine wrath which he +expected; but it did not come. Madelon Hautville set her mouth hard, +wrapped her red cloak around her with a firm gesture, as if she were +a soldier about to start on a long march, and walked out of the yard +and up the road without another word. + +"I swan!" said Dexter Beers. + +The red-faced hostler approached with a pail in each hand bound for +the well; he was watering the coach-horses for the next relay. +"What's up?" he inquired, pushing past him. + +"I'll be darned if I don't believe that gal of Hautville's has +started to walk to Kingston, 'cause I wouldn't let her have another +horse!" + +"Let her go it," droned the red-faced man, with a short chuckle. + +"Hope she won't freeze her feet nor nothin'," said Dexter Beers, +uneasily. + +"Let her _go_ it!" said the red-faced man, swinging across the yard +with his pails. + +Madelon Hautville walked on steadily. She reached the right-hand +turn, and then she was on the direct Kingston road, with a ten-mile +stretch before her. It was past one o'clock, and she could not reach +her journey's end much before dark. + +About two miles after the turn of the road the more thickly set +habitations ceased, and there were only isolated farm-houses, with +long, sloping reaches of woods and pasture-lands between. The +pasture-lands were hummocked with ice-coated rocks and hooped with +frozen vines; they seemed to flow down in glittering waves, like +glaciers, over the hill-sides. The woods stood white and petrified, +as woods might have done in a glacial era. There was no sound in them +except now and then the crack of a bough under the weight of ice, and +slow, painful responses, like the twangs of rusty harp-strings, to +the harder gusts of wind. The cold was so intense that the ice did +not melt in the noonday sun, and there were no soft droppings and +gurglings to modify this rigor of white light and sound. Occasionally +a rabbit crossed Madelon's path, silent as a little gray scudding +shadow, and so swiftly that he did not reach one's consciousness +until he was out of sight. There was seldom a winter bird, even, in +sight. The ice on the trees and the pastures had locked and sealed +their larders. Their little beaks could not pierce it for seeds and +grubs, and so they were forced to repair to kitchen doors and +barnyards in quest of stray crumbs from the provender of men and +cattle. + +The rabbits, and an ox-team drawing a sled laden with cedar logs, +slipping with shrill, long squeaks over the white road, driven by a +man with a red face in an ambush of frozen beard, were all the living +things she met for the first four miles. The man clambered stiffly +down from his sled just before he met her, and began walking, +stamping, rubbing his ears, and swinging his arms violently the +while. He stared hard at Madelon, and gave a sort of grunt as he +passed. It was an instinctive note of comradeship with another in a +situation hard for their common humanity. The man, toiling painfully +along that hard road, on that bitter day, with hands and feet half +frost-bitten, and face smarting as if with fire, his aching lungs +straining with the icy air, felt that he and the woman struggling +over the same road had common cause for wrath against this stress of +nature, and so made that half-surly, half-sympathetic grunt as he +passed her. But she did not respond. She did not even glance at him +as she went along. Her face glowed all over, red as a rose with the +freezing wind; she wrapped her cloak instinctively tight around her, +and walked a little stiffly, as if her feet might be somewhat numb; +but there was in her fixed dark eyes no recognition of anything but +some end she had in view beyond his ken. + +The man stopped and looked seriously after her, and past her down the +road. "Wonder what she's up to!" he muttered. Then he struggled on +after his oxen, who plodded along with goat's-beards of their frozen +breath hanging from their jaws. + +Two miles farther on there was a sudden loud blast of a horn, and +following upon it a great jangle of bells and the tramp of hoofs, and +Madelon knew the Ware and Kingston stage was coming. Presently the +top of the coach and the leaders' heads appeared above the rise of +the road, and Madelon stood well aside to meet it, pressing in among +the crackling icy bushes. + +There was another blast of the horn, then a wild rush of sure-footed +horses down the hill, and the coach was past, going towards Ware. +Madelon had caught only a glimpse of the frost-white driver on the +box, a man beside him shrugged up miserably in great-coat and +comforter, with back rounded and head bent against the cold, and some +chilled faces in the windows. Some of the passengers had come from +Wolverton, ten miles past Kingston, and one might freeze to death on +a long stage journey a day like that. There was, perhaps, less danger +in a walk, but there was danger in that should the cold increase, and +it did increase hourly. Madelon's feet grew more and more numb. She +stamped them from time to time, but more from instinct than from any +real appreciation of the discomfort they gave her. So wrought up was +she with zeal that it seemed she might have set out to walk through a +fiery furnace as soon as through this frozen waste, and perhaps have +had her flesh consumed to ashes, with her soul still intent upon its +one purpose. All thought of her own self, save as an instrument to +save the life of the man she loved, was gone out of the girl. +Jealousy was purged out of her; all resentment for faithlessness, all +longing for possession were gone. She bore in her heart the greatest +love of her life as she sped along down the frozen road to Kingston. + +The last two miles of the way poor Madelon struggled hard to cover. +She drew short, gasping breaths, as if she were on a high +mountain-top. The cold strengthened as the daylight waned. The very +air seemed frozen and resolved into a cutting diamond-dust of frost. +Suddenly Madelon awoke to the fear that she could not walk much +farther. She had eaten nothing since morning; the cold and fatigue +were consuming her life as the flame consumes the wick of the lamp +when the oil is lacking. + +"I must get there!" she said to herself. She stamped her numb feet +desperately. She beat herself pitilessly with her stiff hands. She +set forth on a run towards Kingston, and quickened her blood a little +in that way, although she panted and fairly gasped for breath. + +She drew a sigh of relief when she gained the last rise in the road, +and the town of Kingston lay before her a mile in the valley. It was +growing dark and the village lights were coming out when she had +passed the straggling farms and come into the little centre of the +town where the stores, the meeting-houses, and the tavern were +grouped. + +The village main street looked almost deserted. There was only one +sleigh in sight, drawn up in front of the store. The horse was well +covered with a buffalo-skin and an old bed-quilt in addition, which +his master's wife had doubtless provided on account of the terrible +cold. + +As Madelon reached the store a man came out with a molasses-jug in +hand and arms clasping parcels, which he began stowing away under the +seat of the sleigh. Madelon went up to him. "Can you tell me where +Mr. Otis lives?" said she. She could scarcely enunciate. Her very +tongue seemed stiff with the cold. + +The man turned and stared at her with sharp blue eyes under red brows +frost-white between his cap and twice-wound red tippet. "Hey?" he +said, in a muffled voice. + +"Can you tell me where Mr. Otis lives?" + +"Otis?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Which Otis d'ye mean? There's two Otises. D'ye mean Calvin Otis or +Jim Otis?" + +"He has a son that plays the fiddle," answered Madelon, faintly. + +"Then it's Jim ye mean. He died last year. He had a son Jim that +plays the fiddle. Lives down the road on the left-hand side, five +houses below the meeting-house. House with three popple-trees in +front--sets close to the road." + +Madelon started, but the man's voice arrested her. "You look most +froze," said he. "Hadn't ye better go in there an' warm up?" He +pointed towards the store-windows with a rosy glow of light and +warmth transfusing their thick layers of frost. "It's pipin' hot in +there--warm ye all through in a minute. It's a terrible cold night. +Old man in there, lived 'round these parts risin' eighty years, says +he never knew sech a night. Better just step in there." + +Madelon shook her head and started on. + +"Where did ye come from?" called the man. + +"Ware Centre," Madelon gasped out, as the freezing wind struck her. + +"Good Lord! you don't mean to say you've walked risin' ten mile from +Ware Centre a day like this!" + +Madelon was gone, bending before the wind, without another word. + +"Good Lord!" said the man, "a woman walkin' from Ware Centre this +weather!" He stood staring after the girls' retreating figure; then +he started to unblanket his horse. But he stopped and stared again, +and finally went into the store to tell the news. + +Madelon kept on as fast as she was able, but she was nearly spent. +Her exultation of spirit might indeed survive fleshly exhaustion and +perhaps in a measure overcome it, but it could not prevent it +altogether. When she reached the fifth house below the white +meeting-house, the house set close to the road, with three +poplar-trees in front, she had just strength enough to stagger to the +door and raise the knocker. Then she leaned against the door-post, +and it was only with a fierce effort that she kept her grasp upon her +consciousness. She did not seem to feel her body at all. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +Presently a bolt was shot and the door pushed open with an effort. It +was little used, and there was ice against it. Then a man's face +peered out irresolutely into the dusk. A knock upon the front door, +upon a night like this, seemed so unlikely that he doubted if he had +heard rightly. + +"Anybody here?" he said. Then he saw the woman's figure propped +stiffly against the door-post. "Who is it?" he asked, in a startled +voice. "Is it you, Mrs. Lane?" + +Madelon aroused herself. "I want to see Mr. Otis's son a minute if I +can," she said, with a great effort. Then she raised her piteous eyes +to the face before her, and realized dimly that it was the face of +the young man who had taken her place at the ball, and sent her +homeward to work all this misery on that dreadful night. + +"I am Mr. Otis's son," returned the young man, wonderingly. +"What"--then he gave a cry--"why, it is you!" + +"I want--to--see you--a minute," said Madelon, and her voice sounded +far away in her own ears. + +The young man started. "Why, you're half frozen," he cried out, "and +here I am keeping you standing out here! Come in." + +Madelon shrank back. "No," she faltered, "I--only want to ask--" + +But Jim Otis took her by the arm with gentle force, and she was so +spent that she could but let him have his way, and lead her into the +house and the warm living-room, staggering under his supporting +clasp. + +"Mother," called Jim Otis--"mother, come here, quick!" He placed +Madelon tenderly on the settle, and his mother came hurriedly out of +the pantry. + +"What is it?" she asked. "What is the matter, Jim? Who was it +knocked? Why, who's that?" + +Madelon leaned back helplessly in the corner of the settle, her head +hanging half unconsciously. The young man stooped over her and +unfastened her cloak and hood. "Come here, quick, mother!" he cried, +and his voice was as sweet with pity as a woman's. "This poor girl is +half dead with the cold." + +Mrs. Otis, large and fair-faced, with her soft, massive curves +swathed in purple thibet, stared for a second in speechless wonder. +"Who is it? How did she get here?" she whispered. + +"Hush--I don't know. She's from Ware Centre. Her name's Hautville." + +"Seems to me I've heard of her. What has she come here for, Jim?" + +"Hush--I don't know. She'll hear you. Go and get something hot for +her to drink. I saw her at the ball the other night. Go quick, +mother." + +"I'll get her some brandy cordial," said Mrs. Otis, with sudden +alacrity. She needed time always to get her mental bearing thoroughly +in any emergency, but action was prompt afterwards. She made a quick +motion towards the cupboard, but Madelon aroused herself suddenly. +Her senses had lapsed for a few minutes upon coming into the warm +room. "Where am I?" she asked, in a bewildered way. + +"In our house," replied Mrs. Otis, promptly. "Jim just brought you +in, and it's lucky you come just as you did, for I don't know but +you'd froze to death if you'd been out much longer. Now, I'll get you +some of my brandy cordial, and that'll warm you right up. Did you +come way over from Ware Centre this dreadful night?" + +"Yes, ma'am," replied Madelon, with the dazed look still in her eyes. +Mrs. Otis looked back on her way to the cupboard. + +"Rode way over from Ware Centre in an open sleigh?" she said. + +"No, ma'am; I walked." + +Mrs. Otis stopped and looked at Madelon with a gasp, then at her son. +"She's out of her head, I'm afraid," said she. + +"You didn't really walk over from Ware Centre?" questioned Jim. + +"Yes, I did," replied Madelon. She stood up with sudden decision. "I +want to see you a minute," she said to Jim. Then she turned to Mrs. +Otis. "I don't need anything to take," said she. "I was only a little +dizzy for a minute when I came into this warm room. I feel better +now. I only want to ask your son a question, then I must go home--" + +Before Mrs. Otis could speak she asked the question with no preface. + +"Didn't you see him give me the knife?" she cried out, with fiercely +imploring eyes upon Jim Otis's face. + +The young man turned deadly white. He looked at her and did not +answer. + +"Didn't you?" she repeated. + +"What knife?" asked Jim Otis, slowly. + +"You know what knife! The knife that my brother handed me when I +started home from the ball--the knife that I stabbed Lot Gordon with. +Tell me that you saw it, that you saw me take it, here before your +mother, and then you must go to New Salem and testify, and set Burr +Gordon free! He is in prison for murder, and I am guilty, and they +will not believe it. You must tell them, and they will. You saw my +brother give me that knife." + +Still Jim Otis, with his white face, stood looking at her, and +answered not a word. His mother, continually opening her mouth to +speak, then shutting it, looked first at one, then at the other, with +round, dilated eyes, turning her head and quivering all over her soft +bulk, like some great agitated and softly feathered bird. + +"Why don't you speak?" demanded Madelon. + +"What is it you want me to say?" said Jim Otis, then, hesitatingly. + +"Say? Say that you saw my brother Richard give me the knife that I +did the deed with." + +Jim Otis stood silent, with his pale, handsome face bent doggedly +towards the floor. + +"Say so! You saw it!" + +Still Jim Otis did not speak, and Madelon pressed close to him, and +thrust her agonized face before his. "Have mercy upon me and speak!" +she groaned. + +"Jim, what does she mean?" asked his mother, in a frightened whisper. +"Is she out of her head?" + +"No; hush, mother," replied Jim. Then he turned to the girl. "No," he +said, with stern, defiant eyes upon her face, "I did not see your +brother give you the knife." + +"You did! I know you did!" + +"I _did not!_" + +"You did see him! You were looking at us when I went out!" + +"I was tightening a string in the fiddle when you went out," said Jim +Otis. + +"You must have seen." + +"I tell you I did not." + +Madelon looked at him as if she would penetrate his soul, and he met +her eyes fully. + +"I did not see your brother give you the knife," he replied, with a +steady, unflinching look at her; but a long shudder went over him as +he spoke. The first deliberate lie of his whole life was Jim Otis +telling, for he had seen Richard Hautville give his sister the knife. + +Madelon believed his lie at last, and turned away. What with her sore +exhaustion of body and this last disappointment her heart almost +failed her. She went back to the settle for her cloak and her hood, +and tied them on, while the others stood watching her, seemingly in a +maze. She made for the door, but Jim Otis stopped her. + +"You cannot go back to Ware Centre to-night," he said. + +Madelon looked at him with proud determination, although she could +scarce stand. "I must go," said she, and would have pressed past him, +but he took hold of her arm. + +"Mother," he said, "tell her she cannot go. There has been no such +night as this for forty years, and it is dark now. To-morrow morning +I will carry her home; but to-night, as she is, it is out of the +question. Tell her so, mother." + +Mrs. Otis gathered herself together then, and came forward and laid +hold of Madelon's arm, and strove to pull her back towards the +settle. "Come," said she, as if Madelon were a child--"come, that's a +good girl. You stay with us till morning, and then my son shall hitch +up and carry you home. I shouldn't dare to have him go way over to +Ware Centre to-night, cold as 'tis. He ain't very tough. You stay +here with us to-night, and don't worry anything about it. I don't +know what you're talkin' about, an' I guess you don't--you are all +wore out, poor child; but I guess there didn't nobody have any knife, +and I guess he'll git out of prison pretty soon. You just take off +your things, and I'll get some pillows out of the bedroom, and you +lay down on the settle by the fire while I get some supper. The +kettle's on now. And then I'll heat the warming-pan and get the +spare-room bed as warm as toast, and mix you up a tumbler of hot +brandy cordial, and then you drink it all down and get right into +bed, and I'll tuck you up, and I guess you'll feel better in the +morning, and things will look different." + +"Let me go," Madelon said to Jim Otis. + +"She mustn't go, mother," he said, never looking at Madelon at all, +although he still held fast to her straining arm. + +"Well," said Mrs. Otis, "You ain't no daughter of mine, and if you +set out to go I suppose I ain't any right to hinder you. But there's +one thing maybe you ain't thought of--I can't let my son take you +'way over to Ware Centre a night like this, nohow. He's all I've got +now, and I can't have anything happen to him. He can't go with you, +and there ain't any stable here, and there ain't a neighbor round +here that will hitch up and carry you there to-night, and--I suppose +you know, if you've got common-sense, that if you set out to walk +there, the way you are, you don't stand much chance of gettin' there +alive." + +Madelon stared at her. + +"I don't really know myself what you and my son have been talkin' +about," continued Mrs. Otis, "but near's I can make out you think +you've done something wrong, and somebody's in prison you want to get +out. I suppose you've got sense enough to know that if you freeze to +death going home to-night you can't do anything more to get him out. +Then there's another thing--it's night. You can't do much to get him +out anyway before morning. I don't believe they ever let folks out at +night, and my son shall carry you over just as soon as it's fit in +the morning, and you'll do just as much good as if you went +to-night." + +Still Madelon stood staring at her. Then presently she began +unfastening her hood and cloak. "If you can keep me till morning I +shall be obliged," she said, with a kind of stern gratitude. + +"Stay just as well as not!" cried Mrs. Otis. "Jim, just take her +things and lay 'em in the bedroom. Then you have her set right down +close to the hearth, and get all warmed through, while I get supper." + +Handsome young Jim Otis stood by with his brows knit moodily while +Madelon Hautville removed her wraps, then took them over his arm, and +conducted her to the warm seat in the hearth-corner which his mother +designated. + +In his heart he judged this girl whom he was defending to be guilty, +yet was full of intensest admiration, and was sorely torn between the +two and his own remorse over his false witnessing. "If I'm called +into court and sworn on the Bible, I won't own up that I saw her take +that knife," he muttered to himself, as he laid the red cloak and +hood on the high feather-bed in his mother's room. + +This handsome, stalwart young man, who had hitherto been considered +full of a gay audacity where womenfolk were concerned, able to make +almost any pretty girl flutter at his smile, was strangely abashed +before this beautiful Madelon Hautville, stained, in his eyes, with +crime. He brought in wood and mended the hearth fire; he moved about +doing such household tasks as were allotted to his masculine hands, +and scarcely let his eyes rest once upon the girl in the +chimney-corner. He dreaded the sight of that beautiful face which +gave him such a shock of pity and admiration and horror. Jim Otis's +mind could not compass this new revelation of a woman, but he would +not betray her even for her own pleading if he went down perjured to +his grave. So valiant was he in her defence that he withstood her +against her own self. + +Madelon's mother had died when she was a little girl. She could not +fairly remember that ever in her whole life she had been so tended +and petted as she was that night by Jim Otis's mother. Kind indeed +her father and her brothers had always been to her. They had watched +over her with jealous fondness, and had taken all rougher tasks upon +themselves, but the devotion of woman, which extends to all the minor +details of life, she had never known. + +She had never had a supper-table set out for her own especial +pleasure with this and that dish to tempt her appetite, as Mrs. Otis +set out hers that night. A dish of a fine and sublimated porridge did +Mrs. Otis make for her--a porridge mixed with cream and sprinkled +with nutmeg and fat plums. "I thought some hot porridge would do you +good," said Mrs. Otis, when she sat the smoking bowl before Madelon. +Then she whispered low, that her son, who was putting another stick +on the fire before coming to table, might not hear, "It's the same +kind of porridge I had after my son was born--with cream and plums in +it. I used to think there never was anything so good." This porridge +might well have possessed a flavor of the sweetest memories of +motherhood to the older woman, but to the girl, wild with longing to +be gone and carry out her purpose, manna from heaven would not have +yielded its full measure of sweetness. + +She would scarcely have eaten at all had not Jim Otis's mother +remarked, as she watched her reluctant sips of the good porridge, "As +I said just now, you ain't any daughter of mine, and I ain't any +right to dictate, but if you want to get that man, whoever he is, out +of prison, you'll have to eat enough to get some strength to do it." + +Simply placid as Mrs. Otis looked, she had often wisdom enough to +gain her ends by means of that shrewd finesse of government which +appeals to the reason of others as applied to the furthering of their +own desires. + +Madelon after that swallowed her porridge almost greedily, and when +supper was over went up-stairs to bed, following Mrs. Otis as readily +as any meek young daughter of her own might have done. The spirit of +resistance was laid for the time in this poor Madelon Hautville, but +it had yielded, after all, more to the will of her own reason than to +Jim Otis's mother or the weariness of her own flesh. + +When Mrs. Otis came down-stairs she was flushed with pleasant +motherly victory. "She's drunk all that hot cordial," she said to her +son, "every drop of it, and I've tucked her into bed with the extra +comfortables over her, an' she eat quite a good supper, an' I told +her to go right to sleep, and I guess she will." + +"If she don't she'll be down sick," said Jim, sternly. He sat by the +fire, tuning his fiddle. + +"She can't hear your fiddle so it'll keep her awake, can she?" asked +Mrs. Otis, anxiously. + +"Of course she can't, up in the front chamber, with all the doors +shut. Wouldn't have touched it if she could." + +"Well, I don't s'pose she can. Jim--" + +Jim twanged a string. "What is it, mother?" + +"I don't want to have you think I'm interferin', Jim. I know you're +grown-up now, and I know there's things a young man might not want to +tell his mother till he gets ready, but I do kind of want to know one +thing, Jim." + +Jim tightened the G string. He bent his face low over his violin. "I +don't know as I've ever kept much back from you, mother," he said, +soberly. + +"No, I know you ain't, Jim; you've always told more to your mother +than most boys. But I didn't just know but this might be something +you hadn't got ready to speak about." + +"What is it you want to know, mother?" + +"Jim, is that your _girl?_" + +Jim laughed a little, although his eyes were grave; he raise the +fiddle to his shoulder. "Lord, no, mother. I wouldn't get a girl +without asking you." + +"I didn't know but you might have seen her over to Ware when you've +been there to parties, and not said anything." + +"I never saw her but that once, mother." Jim struck up "Kinloch of +Kinloch," but he played softly, lest by any chance Madelon, aloft in +her chamber, might hear. + +"She's handsome as a picture," said his mother. "Who is it that's in +prison, Jim?" + +"A young man by the name of Gordon." + +"What for?" + +"They think he stabbed his cousin." + +"My sakes! Do you s'pose he did, Jim?" + +"I don't know, mother. I wasn't there." + +"I s'pose the young man that did it is this girl's beau, and that's +why she's so crazy to get him out." + +Jim played the merry measure softly, and made no reply. + +His mother stood before him quivering with curiosity, which she +restrained lest it defeat its own ends. She had learned early that +too impetuous feminine questioning is apt to strike a dead-wall in +the masculine mind. + +"I didn't quite understand what she meant about a knife," she +ventured, with an eager glance at her son. He played a little louder, +as if he did not hear. + +"I s'pose she come here, walked all that way from Ware Centre, this +dreadful night, 'cause she thought you could help to get her young +man out of prison." + +Jim nodded as he fiddled. + +"But I can't see how your seein' her brother give her a knife could +do any good. Of course that sweet, pretty girl didn't do it herself. +But you didn't see her brother give her the knife, Jim?" + +"Didn't you hear me say I didn't?" replied Jim, with sudden force. +"Don't let's talk any more about it, mother. It's a dreadful piece of +work, anyway. I don't half know what it means myself. That poor girl +is 'most crazy because that fellow is in prison. That's why she came +on this wild-goose chase after me. You can't tell anything by what +she says." + +"Wasn't he a nice kind of a fellow before this happened, Jim?" + +"No, he was a scamp," said Jim Otis, angrily. He struck into the +"Fisher's Hornpipe" with fury, regardless of the girl up-stairs. + +"Land sakes, Jim, don't fiddle quite so loud as that--I'm dreadful +afraid she'll hear," said his mother. "I shouldn't thought a girl +that looks as sweet as she does would ever have taken up with a +scamp." + +"The sweetest girls are the worst fools," answered Jim, bitterly, but +he obeyed his mother and played less loudly. The shadows of the +winter night might have footed it to the soft measures of the +hornpipe which Jim Otis played on his fiddle. His mother could +scarcely hear it in the pantry when she went in there to set away the +supper dishes. She shut the door every time, lest her son should feel +the icy air from the fireless closet. She had always a belief that +Jim was delicate, and took a certain pride in it, although she could +not have told why. + +Everything that was in the least likely to freeze to its injury had +to be removed from the cold pantry and set on the hearth that bitter +night. It was quite a while before her soft, heavy pattering, which +jarred the house when she stepped on certain parts of the floor, +ceased, and she took her knitting-work and sat down in her +rocking-chair opposite her son. + +Jim continued to fiddle, touching the strings as if his fingers were +muffled with down. The wind whistled more loudly than his fiddle; it +had increased, and the cold with it. Some of Mrs. Otis's crocks froze +on the hearth that night. No such cold had been known in Vermont for +years. The frost on the window-panes thickened--the light of the full +moon could not penetrate them; all over the house were heard sounds +like those on a straining ship at sea. The old timbers cracked now +and then with a report like a pistol. "It's a dreadful night," said +Mrs. Otis, and as she spoke the returning wind struck the house, and +she gasped as if it had in truth taken her breath away. + +A few minutes before nine o'clock Mrs. Otis put away her +knitting-work and got the great Bible off the desk. "Stop fiddling +now, Jim," she said, solemnly. Mrs. Otis spoke with more direct +authority in religious matters than in others. She felt herself well +backed by the spiritual law. Jim finished the tune he was playing and +lowered his fiddle from his shoulder. His mother found the place in +the Bible, and the holy words were on her tongue when there was a +sharp clash of sleigh-bells close under the window. + +"Somebody's drove into the yard!" cried Mrs. Otis. "Who do you s'pose +'tis this time of night?" + +"Hullo!" shouted a man's voice, hoarsely, and Jim shouted "Hullo!" in +response, and started towards the door. + +"Ask who's there before you open the door," said the mother, +anxiously. She stood listening a moment after Jim had gone; then she +caught her shawl from a peg, put it over her head, and followed +him--she was so afraid some harm would come to her son. + +The outer door was open, and before it was drawn up a sleigh and a +great, high-shouldered, snorting and pawing horse. In the sleigh was +a man muffled in furs like an Eskimo, leaning out and questioning +Jim. + +"When did she come?" asked the man. + +"About five o'clock," answered Jim. + +Then Mrs. Otis understood that they were talking about the girl in +her spare-chamber, and she interposed, standing in the doorway. "She +was just about tuckered out, what with the cold and that awful +tramp," said she. "She most ought to have rode over." Mrs. Otis's +voice was soft and conciliatory. + +"We didn't know she was coming," replied the man in the sleigh, +courteously, "or we should not have let her walk so far on such a +day." + +"Be you her brother?" questioned Mrs. Otis. + +"Yes. I'm her brother Eugene." + +"And you drove over to see where she was?" + +"Yes; we've been very anxious." + +"Well, you can be easy about her for to-night," said Mrs. Otis. +"She's tucked up nice and warm in my spare-chamber bed, and I give +her a tumbler of my brandy cordial, and I guess she's sound asleep." + +"He wants to take her home to-night, mother," said Jim, and there was +a curious appeal in his tone. + +Mrs. Otis, standing there on the door-step in the freezing moonlight, +turned quickly upon the man in the sleigh, and all the soft +conciliation was gone from her voice. "You ain't plannin' to take +that girl way home to Ware Centre to-night?" said she. + +"Father sent me for her," replied Eugene Hautville. + +"Well, she ain't goin' a step!" + +"Her father will expect me to bring her," said Eugene, with his +unfailing courtesy. "He has been very anxious. I had hard work to +find where she was. My father won't be satisfied if I come home +without her." + +"That girl ain't going out of this house to-night!" + +"I've got a bearskin here to wrap her up in. She is used to being out +in all weathers," persisted Eugene, gently. + +"She can't go. Pull her out of a warm bed such a night as this! If +you try to take that poor child out to-night I'll stand in my +spare-chamber door, and you'll have to walk over me to do it--and my +son won't see his mother hurt, I guess!" + +Jim Otis stepped closer to the sleigh and spoke to Eugene Hautville +in a low voice. + +"Well," said Eugene, slowly, "maybe you're right, Otis. I don't know +what father will say, but if she was as used up as you tell for, I +don't know as 'tis safe. It is an awful night." + +"I guess it ain't safe, and she ain't going," maintained Mrs. Otis +from the door-step. + +Then Eugene Hautville bent well out of his sleigh and asked a +question in the other man's ear. + +"Yes, she did," replied Jim Otis. + +"The poor girl is crazy over it," said Eugene. He and Jim talked for +a few moments, but Mrs. Otis, straining her ears on the door-step, +could not hear. + +Suddenly Jim said, quite distinctly, "She wanted to know if I saw him +give her the knife." + +There was a pause; then Eugene Hautville asked, in a voice with which +he might have addressed a judge of his life and death, "Did you?" + +"No," said Jim Otis. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +The next morning there took place in a few hours a great change in +the temperature. It moderated rapidly. The frost on the windows and +the ice-ridges in the roads did not soften yet, since the sun was +overcast by heavy clouds, but the terrible rigor and tension of the +cold was relaxed, and men could breathe without constraint. At eight +o'clock, when Jim Otis and Madelon started for Ware Centre, there was +a white film of fallen snow over the distant hills and scattering +flakes drove in advance of the storm. + +A mile out of Kingston it snowed hard. "Hadn't you better have that +extra shawl mother put in over your shoulders?" Jim Otis suggested. + +But Madelon shook her head. "The snow won't hurt me," she said. She +sat up straight in the sleigh, and there was a look in her eyes, +fixed ahead on the white drive of the storm, as if her spirit were +out-speeding her body. She had her strength again that morning. She +had slept and eaten. She had submitted to the exigencies of life that +she might gain power to resist them again. + +Jim Otis drove a stout little mare with a good wind for speed, but +she had not the stride of David Hautville's great roan. Moreover, +after the first stretch, she slacked on the hills and fell into walks +in the lonely reaches, almost as if she had learned it in a lesson. +Many a pretty girl, flushing sweetly under Jim Otis's gay smile, and +perhaps under his caressing arm, had ridden behind that little canny +mare, who learned well the meaning of the careless rein along the +woodland roads. + +However, to-day there was no careless rein. At the first slack +Madelon herself had reached the whip and touched the gently ambling +neck. "She has more speed in her than this," said she, shortly. + +"She hasn't been driven for two days, either," asserted Jim Otis. +"Wake up, Molly!" He took the whip himself and flourished it with a +quick little snap over her back. In truth, Jim Otis was as anxious to +be at this journey's end as Madelon, for he feared every minute lest +she should ask him again if he had seen her take the knife, and that +he would again have to oppose falsehood to her frantic pleading. But +Madelon had believed him. She did not beg him again for his evidence. +She sat still at his side with a strained look in her black eyes, and +they rode in silence, with the storm heaping its white flakes on +their shoulders, until they reached Ware Centre. + +Then Madelon turned quickly to Jim Otis. "Don't drive to my home," +said she; "I would rather not go home yet. Drive to Burr Gordon's +house, please. I want to see his mother. Don't turn--keep straight +on." + +"Yes, I know where he lives," said Jim, soberly. He drove very +slowly. They were drawing near the turn in the road. "See here," he +said, suddenly, "don't you think you'd better go home now?" He spoke +with nothing of the half-gay, half-caressing authority with which he +was wont to turn a pretty girl to his mind, but timidly rather, and +kept his eyes fixed on the mare's nodding head, hooded with snow. + +"No, I must see Burr's mother," replied Madelon. + +"But your folks will be expecting you, won't they?" persisted Jim +Otis. He felt that he had a duty of loyalty towards this desperate +girl's father and brothers as well as to herself. He had promised +Eugene Hautville to bring her home this morning, and who could tell +where she might wander and when she might return if he left her now? + +He still did not look at Madelon as he spoke, but he felt her turn +and fasten her eyes upon his face, and somehow they compelled his. He +raised them and saw her beautiful face full of a scorn of passion +which he might die and never know in himself. + +"What do you think that is to me," said she, "when I've got to save +his life? If you do not wish to carry me farther, go back. I will +walk." + +"I will take you wherever you wish," returned Jim Otis, and touched +up the mare, and neither spoke again until they reached Burr Gordon's +house, high on its three terraces, with Lot Gordon's opposite. Then +Jim halted his mare in the road before it, and would have alighted to +assist Madelon, but she sprang out before him. "I am much obliged to +you and your mother for what you have done for me," said she, and +turned with a swing of her red cloak, and was skimming up the +terraces like a red-winged bird. + +As for Jim Otis, he slewed his sleigh about recklessly, and shook the +whip over the little mare, and drove up the road. When he reached the +turn which he knew led to the Hautville house he drew rein, and sat +pondering in his sleigh for a few minutes. He was in doubt whether he +should inform Eugene Hautville of his sister's whereabouts or not. +Finally he spoke to the mare, and continued on his way to Kingston. + +The terraces which Madelon mounted were all covered with the +gathering snow. When she reached the last the door was opened, and +Burr Gordon's mother, Elvira, stood there. "I am sorry there's so +much snow for you to wade through," said she, in a sweet, quiet +voice. + +"I don't mind it, thank you," replied Madelon, harshly. She felt +incensed with this mother of Burr's, who came to the door and greeted +her as if she were an ordinary caller, and her son were not in +prison. + +"You had better shake it off your skirts or you'll take cold," said +Mrs. Gordon. + +"I am not afraid," returned Madelon. She gave her skirts a careless +flirt and entered the door with the snow still clinging to her. + +"If you will wait a moment," said Mrs. Gordon, "I will get a broom +and brush the snow from you before it melts. Then you won't take +cold." + +"I don't care to have you, thank you," said Madelon. Mrs. Gordon said +no more, but led the way to the sitting-room. She was a tall, slender +woman with the face of a saint, long and pale, and full of gentle +melancholy, with large, meek-lidded blue eyes and patiently +compressed lips. She had a habit of folding her long hands always +before her, whether she walked or sat, and she moved with sinuous +wavings of her widow-bombazine. + +The room into which she ushered Madelon was accounted the grandest +sitting-room in the village. When Burr's father had built his fine +new house he had made the furnishings correspond. He had eschewed the +spindle-legged tables and fiddle-backed chairs of the former +generations, and taken to solid masses of red mahogany, which were +impressive to the village folk. The carpet was a tapestry of great +crimson roses with the like of which no other floor in town was +covered, and, moreover, there was a glossy black stove instead of a +hearth fire. + +"Please be seated," said Mrs. Gordon. She indicated the best chair in +the room. When her guest had taken it, she sat down herself in the +middle of her great haircloth sofa, and folded her long hands in her +lap. Mrs. Gordon had the extremest manners of the old New England +gentlewoman--so punctiliously polite that they called attention to +themselves. She had married late in life, having been previously a +preceptress in a young ladies' school. She was still the example of +her own precepts--all outward decorum if not inward composure. + +Madelon Hautville, opposite her, in her snow-powdered cloak, with her +face like a flash of white fire in her snow-powdered silk hood, +seemed in comparison a female of another and an older race. She might +well, from the look of her, have come a nearer and straighter road +from the inmost heart of things, from the unpruned tangle of woods +and undammed course of streams, from all primitive and untempered +love and passion and religion, than this gentlewoman formed upon the +models of creeds and scholars. + +Madelon looked at the other woman a second with fierce questioning. +Then she sprang up out of the chair where she had been placed, and +stood before her on her sofa, and cried out, abruptly, "I have come +to tell you about your son. He is not guilty. I, myself, stabbed Lot +Gordon!" + +"Please be seated," said Elvira Gordon, and her folded hands in her +lap never stirred. + +"Seated!" cried Madelon, "seated! How can _you_ be seated, how can +you rest a moment--you, his mother? Why do you not set out to New +Salem now--now? Why do you not walk there, every step, in the snow? +Why do you not crawl there on your hands and knees, if your feet fail +you, and plead with him to confess that I speak the truth, and tell +them to set him free?" + +"I beg of you not to so agitate yourself," said Elvira Gordon. "You +will be ill. Pray be seated." + +Madelon bent towards her with a sudden motion, as if she would seize +her by the shoulders. + +"Are you his mother," she cried--"his mother--and sit here, like +this, and speak like this? Why do you not move? Why do you not start +this instant for New Salem--this instant?" + +"I beg you to calm yourself," replied Elvira Gordon. "I have been to +New Salem to visit my son. I have prayed with him in his prison." + +"Prayed with him! Don't you know that he is innocent, and in prison +for murder--your own son? You stop to pray with him; why don't you +act to save him?" + +"You will make yourself ill, my dear." + +"Don't you believe that your son is innocent?" demanded Madelon. +"Don't you believe it?" + +Her eyes blazed; she clinched her hands. She felt as if she could +spring at this other woman with her gentle murmurings and soft +foldings, and shake her into her own meaning of life. If her impulse +had had the power of deed, Elvira Gordon's little cap of fine +needle-work would have been a fiercely crumpled rag upon her decorous +head, her sober bands of gray hair would have streamed like the locks +of a fury, the quiet clasp of her long fingers would have been +stirred with some response of indignant defence if nothing else. +Madelon, with her, realized that worst balk in the world--the balk of +a passive nature in the path of an active one--and all her fiery zeal +seemed to flow back into herself and fairly madden her. + +"I hope," said Elvira Gordon, "that my son will be proved innocent +and set free." + +"_Proved_ innocent! Don't you know your own son is innocent?" + +"I pray without ceasing that he may be acquitted of the crime for +which he is imprisoned," replied Elvira Gordon, over her folded +hands. + +Madelon looked at her. "You are a good woman," said she, with fierce +scorn. "You are a member of Parson Fair's church, and you keep to the +commandments and all the creed. You are a good woman, and you believe +in the eternal wrath of God and the guilt of your own son. You +believe in that, in spite of what I tell you. But I tell you again +that I, and not your son, am guilty, and I will save him yet!" + +Madelon Hautville gathered her red cloak about her, and Mrs. Gordon +arose as she would have done when any caller was about to take leave. +It would scarcely have seemed out of keeping with her manner had she +politely invited Madelon to call again. However, her quiet voice was +somewhat unsteady and hoarse when she spoke to Madelon on the +threshold of the outer door, although the words were still gently +formal. "I am grateful to you for the interest you take in my son," +she said; "I hope you will not excite yourself so much that you will +be ill." + +"I will die if that can save him," answered Madelon Hautville, and +went down the snowy steps over the terraces. + +Elvira Gordon, when she had closed the door, drew the bolt softly. +Truth was, she thought the girl had gone mad through grief and love +for her son. Believing, as she did, that the love was all unsought +and unreturned, and being also shocked in all her delicate decorum by +such unmaidenly violence and self-betrayal, she regarded Madelon with +a strange mixture of scorn and sympathy and fear. + +Moreover, not one word did she believe of Madelon's assertion that +she herself was guilty. "She is accusing herself to save my son," +thought Elvira Gordon, and her heart seemed to leap after the girl +with half-shamed gratitude, in spite of her astonishment and terror, +as she watched her go out of the yard and across the road to Lot +Gordon's house. Mrs. Gordon stood at one of the narrow lights beside +her front door and watched until Madelon entered the opposite house; +then she went hastily through her fine sitting-room to her own +bedroom, and there went down on her knees, and all her icy constraint +melted into a very passion of weeping and prayer. Those placidly +folded hands of hers clutched at the poor mother-bosom in the fury of +her grief; those placid-lidded eyes welled over with scalding tears; +that calmly set mouth was convulsed like a wailing child's, and all +the rigorous lines of her whole body were relaxed into overborne +curves of agony. "Oh, my son, my son, my son!" lamented Elvira +Gordon. "Have mercy, have mercy, O Father in heaven! Let him be +proved innocent! Let Lot Gordon live! Oh, my son!" + +Elvira Gordon had the stern pride of justice of a Brutus. She would +not without proof discover even to the passionate pleading of her own +heart that she believed her son innocent, but believe it she did. +Every breath she drew was a prayer that Lot Gordon might yet speak +and clear Burr. This morning she had some slight hope that that might +come to pass, for the sick man had passed a comfortable night except +for his old enemy, the cough. + +"It's my belief," Margaret Bean had told Elvira, when she had sped +across the road in the early morning to inquire, "that it's his old +trouble that's going to kill him when he does die instead of anything +else." + +"Has he spoken yet?" asked Elvira, eagerly. + +"No, he ain't; but there's none so still as them that won't speak." +Margaret Bean nodded shrewdly at Elvira. Her voice was weak and +hoarse as if from a cold or much calling, but there was sharp +emphasis in it. She gave a curious impression of spirit subdued and +tearfully rasped, like her face, yet never lacking. + +"You--think he--could?" whispered Elvira Gordon. + +"'Tain't for me to say," replied Margaret Bean. "He lays there--looks +most as if he was dead." She wiped her eyes hard, with a +handkerchief so stiff that it looked on that cold morning frozen as +with old tears. Margaret Bean was famous for her fine starching in +the village; it was her chief domestic talent, and she was faithful +in its application in all possible directions. + +"I wish he would speak if he could," said Mrs. Gordon. + +"I do, if it's for the best," returned Margaret Bean. She hesitated; +there were red rings around her tearful eyes, like a bird's. "I can't +believe your son did it, nohow, Mis' Gordon," said she. + +"I hope if my son is innocent he will be proved so," returned Elvira +Gordon. She was too proudly just herself not to use the word _if_, +and yet she could have slain the other woman for the sly doubt and +pity in her tone. + +"It's harder for you than 'tis for him, layin' there," said Margaret +Bean, nodding towards the house. There was an odd gratulation of pity +in her tone. She rubbed her eyes again. + +"We all have our own burdens," replied Elvira, with a dignified +motion, as if she straightened herself under hers. "I hope he will be +able to speak--soon." + +"I hope so, if it's for the best," said Margaret Bean. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +Elvira Gordon had gone home hoping that Lot might yet speak. She had +heard his rattling cough as she picked her way out of the icy yard, +and Madelon also heard it when she entered it. She knocked at the +side door, and Margaret Bean opened it. She had a gruel cup in her +hand. + +"I want to see him," said Madelon. + +Margaret Bean looked at her. Her starched calico apron flared out +widely over her lank knees across the doorway. + +"I'm afraid he ain't able to see nobody this morning," said she, and +the asperity in her tone was less veiled than usual. Her voice was +not so hoarse. She was mindful of this girl's former conduct at her +master's bedside, and herself half believed her mad or guilty. A +suspicious imagination had Margaret Bean, and Madelon would have +found in her a much readier belief than in others. + +"I've got to see him, whether he's able or not," said Madelon. + +"The doctor said--" + +"I'm going to see him!" + +Madelon pushed roughly in past the smooth apron and ran through the +entry to Lot's room, with the housekeeper staring after her in a +helpless ruffle of indignation. + +"She's gone in there," she told her husband, who appeared in the +kitchen door, dish-towel in hand. Margaret Bean's husband always +washed the dishes and performed all the irresponsible domestic duties +of the establishment. He was commonly adjudged not as smart as his +wife, and little store was set by his counsels. Indeed, at times the +only dignity of his man's estate which seemed left to this obediently +pottering old body was the masculine pronoun which necessarily +expressed him still. However, even in that the undisturbed use was +not allowed. "Margaret Bean's husband" was usually substituted for +"He," and nothing left of him but the superior feminine element +feebly qualified by masculinity. + +Margaret Bean's husband's name was Zenas, but scarcely anybody knew +it, and he had almost forgotten it himself through never being +addressed by it. Margaret herself spoke of her husband as "Him," but +she never called him anything, except sometimes "You." However, he +always knew when she meant him, and there was no need of +specification. + +Now he half thought she was appealing to his masculine authority from +her bewildered air. He stiffened his meek old back. "Want me to go in +there and order her out?" + +"_You!_ Go back in there and finish them dishes." + +Margaret Bean's husband went back into the kitchen, and Margaret +followed Madelon with a sly, determined air, to Lot's room. + +The great square northwest room was warm, but the frost had not yet +melted from the window-panes. The room looked full of hard white +lines of frost, and starched curtains, and high wainscoting; but the +hardest white lines of all were in Lot Gordon's face, sunken sharply +in his pillows, showing between the stiff dimity slants of his +bed-hangings as in a tent door. He looked already like a dead man, +except for his eyes. It seemed as if the life in them could never die +when they saw Madelon. She bent over him, darkening the light. + +"Speak now!" said she. + +Lot Gordon looked up at her. + +"I tell you, speak! I will not bear this any longer. I am at the +end." + +Still Lot Gordon looked up at her silently. + +Then Madelon made a quick motion in the folds of her skirt, and there +was the long gleam of a hunting-knife above the man in the bed. +Margaret Bean, standing by the door, shrieked faintly, but she did +not stir. + +"I have tried everything," said Madelon. "This is the last. Speak, or +I will make your speaking of no avail. I will strike again, and this +time they shall find me beside you and not Burr. My new guilt shall +prove my old, and they will hang me and not him. Speak, or, before +God, I will strike!" + +Then Lot Gordon spoke. "I love you, Madelon," said he. + +"Say what I bid you, Lot Gordon; not that." + +"All your bidding is in that." + +"Will you?" + +"I will clear--Burr." + +Madelon slipped her knife away, and stood back. Margaret Bean slunk +farther around past the bedpost. Neither of them could see her. + +"On one condition," said Lot Gordon. + +"What?" + +"That you marry me." + +Madelon gasped. "You?" + +Lot laughed faintly, stretching his ghastly mouth. "You think it is +an offer of wedlock from a churchyard knight," he said. + +"What are you talking about, Lot Gordon?" + +"Marry me!" + +"Marry you? I am going to prison to-day for stabbing you. If you die, +I die for your murder. Marriage between us? You are mad, Lot Gordon." + +Lot Gordon opened his mouth to speak, but he coughed instead. He half +raised himself feebly, and his cough shook the bed. Madelon waited +until he lay back, gasping. + +"You are mad to talk so," she said again, but her voice was softer. + +"No madder--than--my ancestors made me," Lot stammered, feebly. Great +drops of sweat stood on his forehead. + +Madelon stood looking at him. He lay still, breathing hard, for a +little; then he spoke again. "Say you will marry me, and I will clear +him," he said, "or else--strike as you will. But all will believe +that Burr struck the first blow and you the second for love of him, +and though he be not hung, the mark of the noose will be round his +neck in folks' fancies so long as he draws the breath of life." + +"I will marry you," said Madelon. + +"Don't cheat yourself," Lot went on, in his disjointed sentences, +broken with the rise of the cough in his throat. "This wound may not +be--mortal--after all, and a man lives--long, sometimes, when he's +sore put to it for breath. The spark of life dies hard, and you may +fan it into a blaze again. All the doctor's nostrums may not stir my +poor dying flesh--but give the spirit--what it craves--and 'tis +sometimes--strong enough--to gallop the flesh where it will. Lord, +I've seen a tree blossom in the fall, when 'twas warm enough. It may +be a long life we'll--live together, Madelon. Don't--cheat--yourself +into--thinking you'll be my widow, instead of--my wife. My wife you +may be, and--the mother of my children." + +Madelon moved towards him with a curious, pushing motion, as if she +thrust out of her way her own will. She bent over him her white face, +holding her body aloof. "I will marry you, come what will. Now, set +him free." + +Great tears stood in Lot's eyes. "Oh," he whispered, "you think only +of him. I love you better than he does, Madelon." + +"Set him free," said she, in a hard voice. + +Lot heaved a great sigh, and rolled his eyes feebly about towards the +door. + +"Find--Margaret Bean," he began; and with that Margaret Bean, who had +kept the door ajar, slid out softly, "and tell her--to send her +husband to--Parson Fair, and--Jonas Hapgood, and she--must go the +other way for--the doctor. Tell them to come at once." + +With that Lot fell to coughing again, but Madelon went out quickly, +and found Margaret Bean in the kitchen mixing gruel. + +"Mr. Gordon wishes your husband to go at once for Parson Fair and +Jonas Hapgood, and you for the doctor," said she. + +"Is he took worse?" asked Margaret Bean, innocently, with a quick +sniff of apprehension. + +"No, he is no worse, but he wishes to see them. He said to go at +once." + +Margaret Bean cast an injured eye at the window, all blurred with the +clinging shreds of the storm. "I don't see how I can get out in this +awful storm nohow," she said. "I've got rheumatism now. Why can't +_he_ go to see 'em all, I'd like to know?" + +"The doctor lives a quarter of a mile the other way. It will save +time." + +Margaret Bean looked at the gruel. "I've got to make this gruel for +him." + +"I will make it. Get your shawl, quick." + +"It ain't b'iled." + +"I tell you I will make it." + +"Why can't _he_ go to both places?" + +"I will go myself!" Madelon cried, suddenly. She had been bewildered, +or that would have occurred to her before. She had never been one to +send where she could go, but for the time Lot Gordon's will had +overcome hers. "Tell your husband to go to the parson's and the +sheriff's, quick, and I will go for the doctor," said she, and was +flashing out of the yard in her red cloak before Margaret Bean had +time to turn herself about from the prospect of her own going. Then +she ordered her husband imperiously into his boots and great-coat and +tippet, and sent him forth. + +She finished the gruel, and took it in to the sick man, and fed him +with hard thrusts of the spoon. Lot looked about feebly for Madelon, +and Margaret Bean replied to the look, in her husky voice, "She's +gone, instead of me. I've got rheumatism too bad to venture out in +such a storm and get my petticoats bedraggled." She spoke with a +little whine of defiant crying, but Lot took no notice. He was +exhausted. After he had eaten the gruel, he pointed to the +chimney-cupboard. + +"What is it ye want?" said she. + +Lot pointed. + +"How do I know what ye want when ye jest p'int like that?" + +But there came then a look into Lot Gordon's eyes as expressive as a +word, and Margaret Bean crossed over to the chimney-cupboard, and got +out the brandy-flask and a wine-glass and some loaf-sugar. She mixed +a little dose of the brandy and sugar, and would have fed it to the +sick man as she had the gruel, but he motioned her aside, raised +himself with an effort, and drank it down eagerly. Then he lay still, +and soon a faint flush came into his face. Margaret Bean went back +into the kitchen and mixed some bread, with her eye upon the window. + +Presently there was a wild gallop and great clash of bells past the +window, and a shout at the door. Margaret Bean put on her little blue +shawl and opened it when the shout had been twice repeated. Old David +Hautville sat there in his sleigh, keeping a tight rein on his +tugging roan. "My daughter here?" he shouted. "Whoa, there!" + +"There's sick folks here," said Margaret Bean, shivering in the +doorway. "You hadn't ought to holler so." Her tearful eyes were more +frankly hostile than usual. She had always looked down from her own +slight eminence of life upon these Hautvilles, and now was full of +scorn that her master was to marry one of them. + +"I want to know if my daughter is here," said David Hautville, and he +did not lower his voice. It sounded like a hoarse bellow of wrath, +coming out of the white whirl of snow. His fur coat was all crusted +with snow, his great mustache heavy with it; the roan plunged in a +rising cloud of it. + +"No, she ain't here," replied Margaret Bean, and her weak voice +seemed by its very antithesis to express the utmost scorn and disgust +at the brutality of the other. + +"Has she been here?" + +"Yes, she's been here." Margaret made as though to shut the door, +but David Hautville stopped her. + +"Did she start for home?" + +"You'd better ask somebody that knows more about it." + +"Where did she go?" + +"You'd better ask somebody that knows about it!" repeated Margaret +Bean, in her malicious meekness. Then she shut the door. + +David Hautville, with a great "whoa!" leaped out of the sleigh. He +led up the roan with a fierce pull to the fence, and tied her there. +Then he strode into the house, and through the entry to Lot's room, +with no ceremony. + +"Where is my daughter?" he demanded, standing at Lot's bedside in his +great fur coat, all bristling with points of snow. + +"She'll be back presently," answered Lot. His voice was a little +stronger; there were two red spots on his cheeks. + +"Where's she gone?" + +"For the doctor." + +All at once David Hautville gave a great start. "Why, you're +talking!" he cried out. "You couldn't speak." + +Lot nodded vaguely. + +"You're better, then?" cried the other, with a sharp look at him. + +Lot nodded again. + +"When did she come here?" + +"Just now." + +"Same damned nonsense, I suppose. She's gone mad. If the law don't +finish that fellow, I will!" + +Lot motioned towards a chair. "Sit down," he whispered. + +"She coming back with the doctor?" + +"Yes," Lot coughed. + +David Hautville settled into a chair with a surly grunt. He watched +Lot cough, holding to his straining chest, and thought that he must +be worse, else he would not have sent for the doctor. He resolved to +wait and take his daughter home with him, by force if necessary, but +with no more disturbance of this man, who might be sick unto death. +Seeing Lot cast his eyes about as if looking for something, and make +a motion towards the table at his side, he rose up quickly and got +him a spoonful of the cough mixture in a bottle thereon, and +administered it to him gently. + +"Don't you touch my wet coat," said David Hautville, "or yo'll get a +chill," and he held himself carefully away from the sick man. + +When Lot lay back, panting, he returned to his chair and did not +speak again. The two remained in silence until there came the jingle +of bells, the tramp of horses' feet, and the voice of men out in the +yard. + +Lot lay still, with his eyes closed. David Hautville raised his head +and looked at the window, thick with frost. Presently the door was +opened softly, and the doctor came in, with Parson Fair and Jonas +Hapgood. Madelon, in her snow-powdered red cloak, came last. David +started up fiercely when he saw her; then he stood back and waited. +The doctor bent over Lot and began counting his pulse. He eyed him +sharply. + +"The pendulum still swings," said Lot. + +The doctor started. "You can speak, then!" he cried out, brusquely. + +Lot smiled. + +The doctor was old, and his long struggle with birth and death had +begun to tell upon him. He had already visited Lot that morning, +after a hard night with a patient, back in the hills. His face was +haggard under its sharp gray bristle of beard; his eyes fierce, like +an old dog's, with fatigue and hunger. He had just reached home and +sat down to his breakfast when this new call came. He had thought Lot +was dying from Madelon's imperative summons, and she had not +undeceived him. She was growing cunning in her desperate efforts to +save Burr Gordon. + +"What in thunder did ye send for me again for?" he snapped. This old +country doctor was never chary of plain speaking, and his brusqueness +had increased his popularity. Many of his patients were simple +countrywomen, who had greater belief in that which they feared. They +repeated his half-savage speeches to each other, and added, "He's a +good doctor, if he does speak out." + +Lot only smiled that covert smile of his, which seemed to imply some +wisdom of humor beyond the ken of others. "I ought to be dying," he +said, with grim apology. "I ought not--to have disturbed you all for +a less reason than to witness my final exit, but I want you to +witness something else." Lot Gordon spoke quite strongly and +connectedly. + +"What?" asked the doctor, irritably. + +"I want to make a statement," said Lot Gordon. + +There was a pause. Jonas Hapgood, with his look of heavy +facetiousness, slightly tempered now with curiosity, stood lounging +into his great snowy boots at the foot of the bed. Parson Fair, the +consolation for the dying which he had thought to administer still in +his mind, which could not swerve easily, his slender height in his +black surtout inclined towards the sick man with gentle courtesy, +waited. Margaret Bean peered around the bed-curtain. Madelon stood +near the doctor, her face white as if she were dead, and a look of +awful listening upon it. In the background David Hautville, wrathful +and wondering, towered over them all. + +"I wish to declare in the presence of these witnesses," said Lot +Gordon, "the doctor here testifying that I am in my right mind"--the +doctor gave a surly grunt of assent--"that it is my firm belief that +all mortal ills come to man through his own agency, and this last ill +of mine is no exception. I declare solemnly before you all that my +cousin Burr Gordon is not guilty of administering this wound which I +bear in my side." + +The sheriff started forward. "Who did do it, then?" he cried out. + +"I myself," replied Lot Gordon. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +There was a gasp of astonishment from the company. Jonas Hapgood +began to speak, but Madelon's soprano drowned out his thick bass. + +"How dare you," she cried out, "swear to that lie? Liar! You are a +liar, Lot Gordon!" + +Then, before Lot could reply, David Hautville came forward with a +mighty plunge, and grasped his daughter by the arm, and forced her to +the door. + +"Get ye out of this," growled David Hautville; but Madelon turned her +face back in the doorway for one last word. "Don't you know," she +shrieked back to Lot Gordon, in her pitiless despair--"don't you know +that I would rather have seen the inside of my prison-cell to-night +and the gallows to-morrow than this, Lot Gordon?" + +"Quit your talk!" shouted David Hautville; and she followed his +fierce leading out of the house into the yard. + +"Get ye into this sleigh," ordered her father; and she obeyed. +Suddenly the fire of passion and revolt seemed to die out in her; it +was like a lull in a spiritual storm. She rode home with her father, +and neither spoke. David Hautville now considered the matter as past +any words of reasoning. He was convinced that his daughter's fair +wits were shaken, and that nothing but summary dealing, as with a +child, could avail anything. When they reached home he bade her, with +a kind of stern forbearance, to get into the house at once and see to +her work there, and she obeyed again. + +All that day, and many days after that, poor Madelon Hautville, who +had been striving like any warrior against the powers and +principalities of human wills and passions, and had grounded her arms +after a victory which had left her wounded almost to death, carried +her bleeding heart and walked her woman's treadmill. She scoured +faithfully the pewter dishes and the iron pots. She swept the hearth +clean and baked and brewed and spun and sewed. Her lot would have +been easier had her woe befallen her generations before, and she +could, instead, have backed her heavy load of tenting through the +snow on wild hunting-parties, and broken the ice on the river for +fish, and perchance taken a hand at the defence when the males of her +tribe were hard pressed. Civilization bowed cruelly this girl, who +felt in greater measure than the gently staid female descendants of +the Puritan stock around her the fire of savage or primitive +passions; but she now submitted to it with the taciturnity of one of +her ancestresses to the torture. Week after week she went about the +house, and neither spoke nor smiled. Burr Gordon was set free, fully +acquitted of the charge against him; Madelon's denial of Lot's false +confession had gone for nothing. Half the village considered her +hysterical and irresponsible, and Lot Gordon, it was agreed, was just +the man to lay violent hands upon his own life, steal and use his +cousin's knife, and keep mute to fasten the guilt upon him, as he had +confessed. + +A week after Burr's release Louis and Richard Hautville came home. +They had been trapping on Green Mountain, they said, camping in the +little lodge they had built there. When they came in laden with stark +white rabbits and limp-necked birds, and one of them with a haunch of +venison on his back, Madelon faced them with sudden fierceness, as if +to speak. Then she turned away to her work, without a word of +greeting. The boy Richard stared at her with a quiver, as of coming +tears on his handsome face. He whispered to Eugene, when she went +into the pantry. + +"Best let her alone," said Eugene. "She's been so ever since." + +Not one of them knew of her promise to marry Lot Gordon, and Lot had +bound Margaret Bean over to secrecy. All the village was as yet +ignorant of that, but there was enough besides to afford a choice +bone of gossip to folk sunken in the monotony and isolation of a +Vermont country winter. The women put their heads together over it at +their quilting-bees, and the men in their lounging-places in the +store and tavern. This mystery, which endured as well as their +hard-packed snows, and kept their imaginations always upon the +stretch, was a great acquisition to them. Plenty of mental activity +was there in Ware Centre that winter, and the brains of many were +smartly at work upon some of those problems whose conditions, being +all unknown quantities of character and circumstance and fate, are +beyond all rules of solution. + +Would Burr Gordon marry Dorothy Fair, or would he, after all, turn +again to his old love, who had shown such devotion to him that it had +almost turned her brain? Unless, indeed--for there is room in gossip +for all suspicion, and surmise can never be quite laid at rest--her +brain had not been turned, and she had struck the blow, as she said. +But, in that case, why had Lot taken her guilt upon himself? Why had +he cleared Burr at his own expense, and saved her? If he had done it +for love of Madelon, he had also set his rival free to woo her, and +had established her innocence in his eyes. + +Lot still lived. Would he die, finally, of his wound or of his +disease? Would he recover and come out of his house alive again? Time +went on, and the people knew no more than they knew at first; but +they continued to watch, crossing the gleams of all the neighboring +window-panes with sharp lines of attention, hushing conversation in +the store if a Hautville or a Gordon entered, and rolling keen eyes +over shoulders after meeting one of them upon the country roads. But +especially they were alert in the meeting-house upon Sabbath days. +Their eyes were slyly keen upon Dorothy Fair, softly wrapped in her +blue wadded silk and swan's-down, holding up her head with gentle +state in the parson's pew; upon Burr Gordon, somewhat pale and moody +in his smart Sunday coat; and Madelon, up in the singing-seats. They +never, in those days, saw Madelon elsewhere. She went to meeting +every Sabbath day and sang as usual, but between the hymns she sat +with her beautiful face as irresponsive to all around her as a +painted portrait, and more so, for the eyes of a portrait will often +seem to follow an ardent gazer. Madelon's father and brothers, except +Richard and Louis, who kept their own counsel, were much bewildered +among themselves at her strange mood, and were inclined to hold the +opinion that her wits were a little shaken, and, moreover, to keep it +quiet and secret from everybody until she should be quite restored. +They said little to her, treating her with a kind of forbearing +compassion; but the indignation of them all was fierce, although held +well in check, against Burr Gordon. Him they held accountable for +all. + +Burr Gordon might well have been quit of any charge of cowardice had +he shrunk from facing the male Hautvilles on those days. They passed +him in the road with the looks of surly dogs in leash. None of them +except Eugene gave him a nod of recognition. Eugene bowed always, +with his unfailing grace of courtesy, but he hated him more than all +the others, for he was jealous on his own account as well as his +sister's. It was said that Burr Gordon, since his acquittal, was +courting Dorothy Fair steadily, although they had not been seen out +together. + +Burr had been to the Hautville house twice since his return from New +Salem, but had not been admitted. Once when he called Madelon had +been alone in the house, and caught a glimpse of her old lover coming +into the yard. She had sprung up, letting her needle-work slide to +the floor, and fled with her face as white as death and her heart +beating hard into the freezing best room, and stood back in a corner +out of range of the windows, and listened to the taps of the knocker +and finally to Burr's retreating steps. Then she crept across to a +window and peered around the curtain, and watched him out of sight as +if her soul would follow him; then she stole out the door and looked +up and down to see if anybody was in sight; and then she flung +herself down upon her knees and kissed her lover's cold footprint in +the snow. + +The second time Burr came was on an evening, when her father and all +her brothers except Richard were at the singing-school. She knew +Burr's step when he drew near the door, and bade Richard shortly to +answer the knock, and say she was busy and could see nobody, which he +did with all the emphasis which his fiery young blood could put into +words of dismissal. The boy, of all the others, alone knew a reason +why he should be more lenient with Burr; and yet this very reason +seemed to swell his wrath and hold him more deeply responsible for a +deeper disgrace. When he had shut the door hard upon Burr, he turned +to his sister. "I would have killed him rather than let him in," said +he. + +Madelon took another stitch in her work. Her face looked as if it +were carved in marble. Richard stood staring at her a second; then he +flung out of the room, and the doors closing behind him shook the +house. Richard's manner towards his sister was sometimes full of a +fierce sympathy and partisanship, sometimes of wild anger and +aversion. He looked ten years older in a few weeks. Both he and Louis +appeared to avoid the other members of the family, and kept much +together, and yet even in their close companionship they also seemed +to have a curious avoidance of each other; one was seldom seen to +look in his brother's face, or address him directly. + +One morning, a month after Burr's release, Margaret Bean came to the +Hautville door. She was well wrapped against the cold, her head +especially being swathed about with lengths of knitted scarf over her +silk hood; there was only a thin sharp gleam of face out of it, like +a very lance of intelligence. Margaret held out the stiff white +corner of a letter from the folds of her shawl. "He sent it," she +said to Madelon, who came to the door. + +Madelon opened the letter and read it. "I can't come," she said, +shortly. "I'm busy. Tell him he must write what he wants to tell me." + +Margaret Bean's eyes were sharp as steel points. She had not known +what was in the letter. "Hey?" said she, pretending that she had not +heard, in order to make Madelon repeat and perhaps reveal more. + +"I can't come," said Madelon. "He can write what he wants to tell +me." + +Suddenly a great red flush spread over her pale face and her neck. +She lowered her eyes before the other woman as if in utter +degradation of shame, and shrank back into the house and closed the +door in Margaret Bean's face. + +Margaret Bean stood for a moment, a silent, shapeless figure in the +cold air. "Pretty actions, I call it," said she then, quite loudly, +and went out of the yard with a curious tilting motion on slender +ankles, as of a balancing bale of wool. + +Madelon slipped her letter into her pocket as she entered the +kitchen. Her father and all her brothers were there. It was shortly +after breakfast, and they had not yet gone out. + +"Who was it at the door?" her father asked. He sat by the fire in his +great boots. + +"Margaret Bean." + +"What did she want?" + +"Lot Gordon sent for me to come over there." + +"What for?" + +"He wanted--to--tell me something." + +"You ain't going a step. I can tell ye that." + +"I--told her I couldn't go," said Madelon. Her voice was almost +breathless, and still that red of shame was over her face. She bent +her head and turned her back to them all, and went out of the room. +The male Hautvilles looked at one another. "What's come over the girl +now?" said Abner, in his surly bass growl. + +"She's a woman," said his father, and he stamped his booted feet on +the floor with a great clamp. + +Madelon meantime fled up-stairs to her chamber, with her first +love-letter from Lot Gordon in her pocket. Until this the reality of +all that had happened had not fully come home to her. Without +acknowledging it to herself she had entertained a half-hope that Lot +might not have been entirely in earnest--that he might not hold her +to her promise. And then there had been the uncertainty as to his +recovery. But here was this letter, in which Lot Gordon called +her--her, Madelon Hautville--his sweetheart, and begged her to come +to him, as he had something of importance to say to her! He used, +moreover, terms of endearment which thrilled her with the stinging +shame of lashes upon her bare shoulders at the public whipping-post. +She lit the candle on her table, snatched the letter out of her +pocket, crumpled it fiercely as if it were some live thing that she +would crush the life out of, and then held it to the candle-flame +until it burned away, and the last flashes of it scorched her +fingers. Then she caught a sight of her own miserable, shamed face in +her looking-glass, and flushed redder and struck herself in her face +angrily, and then fell to walking up and down her little room. + +Her father and brothers down below heard her, and looked at each +other. + +"There was that Emmeline Littlefield that went mad, and fell to +walking all the time," said Abner. + +The others listened to the footsteps overhead with a gloomy assent of +silence. + +"They had to keep her in a room with an iron grate on the window," +said Abner, further, with a pale scowl. + +Then David Hautville took down his leather jacket from its peg with a +jerk, and thrust his arm into it. "I tell ye, she's a _woman_," he +said, in a shout, as if to drown out those hurrying steps; and then +he went out of the room and the house, and disappeared with axe on +shoulder across the snowy reach of fields; and presently all his sons +except Eugene followed him. Eugene remained to keep watch over his +sister. + + + + +Chapter XV + + +After his father and brothers were gone, Eugene got Louis's fiddle +out of the chimney-cupboard and fell to playing with an imperfect +touch, picking out a tune slowly, with halts between the strains, as +if he spelled a word with stammering syllables. Eugene's musical +expression was in his throat alone; his fingers were almost powerless +to bring out the meaning of sweet sounds. A drunken crew on a rolling +vessel might have danced to the tune that Eugene Hautville fingered +on his brother's fiddle that morning while his sister walked back and +forth overhead, running the gantlet, as it were, of an agony which +his masculine imagination could not compass, well tutored as it was +by the lessons of his Shakespeare book. + +When Margaret Bean came to the door the second time she heard the +squeak of the fiddle, and clanged the knocker loud to overcome it. +Madelon and Eugene reached the door at the same time, and Margaret +Bean extended another letter. "Here's another," said she, shortly, to +Madelon. She tucked the hand which had held the letter under her +shawl and hugged herself with a shiver, ostentatiously. "I'm most +froze, traipsin' back and forth, I know that much," she muttered. + +Eugene stood aside with a flourish and a graceful, beckoning wave of +his hand. "Won't you come in and warm yourself?" he said, and he +smiled in her face as if she and no other were the love of his heart. + +But Margaret Bean had a shrewd understanding which no grace of +flattery could dazzle, and felt truly that nowadays her principal +claim to masculine admiration lay in her fine starching specialty of +housewifery; and of that she gave no show, bundled up against the +cold in her shapeless wools. So she put aside the young man's smiling +courtesy scornfully, as not belonging to her, and spoke in a voice as +sharp as an edge of her own well-stiffened linens. "No, sir," said +Margaret Bean; "I've got bread in the oven and I can't stop, and I +ain't coming in for two or three minutes and set with my things on, +and get all chilled through when I go out. I'll stand here while your +sister reads that letter. He said the answer would be just 'yes' or +'no,' and I shouldn't have to wait long. 'She ain't one to teeter +long on a decision,' says he; 'she finds her footin' one side or the +other.' He talks queer, queerer'n ever sence he was hurt. I pity +anybody that gets him." + +"Tell him 'yes,'" said Madelon, abruptly; and then she wheeled about +and went into the house. + +"Well," said Margaret Bean, harshly. The door closed before her; +Eugene had forgotten his courtesy, and followed his sister into the +house without a good-day to the guest. + +Margaret Bean stood for a minute looking at the house, with its yawn +of blank windows in her face; then she went out of the yard, bearing +her message to Lot Gordon. + +Eugene Hautville was startled at the look on Madelon's face when she +went into the house. "Madelon, what is it?" he said, softly. But she +did not answer him a word; she ran across the room and thrust Lot +Gordon's letter into the fire. Eugene followed her and turned her +about gently, and looked keenly in her white face. + +"What was in that latter?" said he. + +Madelon shook her head dumbly. + +"Madelon?" + +"Wait. You will know soon. I can't tell you," she gasped out then. + +"Was it from Lot Gordon?" + +She nodded. + +"What is he writing to you about? You are my sister, and I have a +right to know." + +"Wait," she gasped again. "Oh, Eugene, wait. I--can't--" + +Suddenly Madelon hung heavy on her brother's arm. "Madelon," he cried +out loudly to her, as if she were deaf--"Madelon, don't! You needn't +tell me. Madelon!" + +Eugene almost lifted his sister into the rocking-chair on the hearth, +and hastened to get her a cup of water; but when he returned with it +she motioned it away, and was sitting up, stern and straight and +white, but quite conscious. + +"Hadn't you better drink it, Madelon?" pleaded Eugene. + +"No. What do I want it for? I am quite well," said she. + +"You almost fainted away." + +"I don't want it." + +Eugene set the cup on the dresser; then he came back to Madelon, and +stood over her, looking at her, his dark face as pitiful as a +woman's. "Madelon, why can't you tell me what new thing is making you +act like this?" he said. Madelon made an impatient motion and started +up, and would have gone out of the room, but Eugene flung an arm +around her and held her firmly. "What is it, poor girl?" he whispered +in her ear. + +Madelon had soft woman's blood in her veins, after all. Suddenly she +shook convulsively, and would have kept her face firm, but she could +not. She put her head on her brother's shoulder, and sobbed and wept +as he had never seen her do, even when she was a child, for she had +never been one to cry when she was hurt. Eugene sat down in the +rocking-chair with his sister on his knee, and smoothed her dark hair +as gently as her mother might have done. "Poor girl! poor girl!" he +kept whispering; but, softly caressing as his voice was, his eyes, +staring over his sister's head at the fire, got a fierce and fiercer +look; for he was thinking of Burr Gordon and cursing him in his heart +for all this. "Good Lord, Madelon, can't you put that fellow out of +your head?" he cried out, sharply, all at once. + +Then Madelon hushed her sobs, with a stern grip of her will upon her +quivering nerves, and raised herself up and away from him. "That has +nothing to do with this," she said, coldly. "Let me go now, Eugene." + +But Eugene held her strongly with a hand on either arm, and scanned +her keenly with his indignant eyes. "He is at the root of the whole +matter," said he, "and you know it. I wish--" + +"I tell you Burr Gordon has nothing to do with this last. He knows +nothing of it. Let me go, Eugene." + +But Eugene still held her and looked at her. "Madelon--" + +"What? I can sit here no longer. I have work to do. There is nothing +the matter with me. I have nothing to complain of. What I do I do of +my own free will." + +"Madelon," whispered Eugene, with a red flush stealing over his dark +face, his eyes dropping a little before her, "you don't--think she +will--marry him?" + +"Who? Dorothy?" + +Eugene nodded. + +"Of course she will--marry him, Eugene Hautville." + +Eugene set his sister down suddenly and got up. "All I've got to say +is, then," he cried, with a movement of his right arm like a blow, +"it's a damned shame that the child can't be taken care of among us +all." + +"What do you mean, Eugene Hautville?" + +"I mean that she had better lie down in her grave than marry that--" + +"Take care what you say, Eugene." + +"I say she had--" + +"Better lie down in her grave than marry him--than marry Burr Gordon? +What do you mean? Who are you, that you talk in this way? He is +better than you all; not one of you is fit to tie his shoe." + +"Madelon, are you mad? He is a lying villain, and you know it, +and--God knows it's only on her account I speak. Some one ought to +tell her." + +"Tell her, tell her! What do you think I would tell her if I were to +speak? If she were to come to me and ask me if Burr ever courted me +and played me false for her, I would tell her, no, no, no! If she +were to ask me if Burr ever kissed me, or said a fond word to me, or +gave me a fond look, I would tell her, and this last is the truth, +that he never gave me more than a passing thought, and 'twas only my +own short-sightedness and conceit that made me think 'twas more than +that, shame to me! Isn't he a man, and shouldn't a man look well +about him among us to be sure his heart is set? I'd tell her 'twas +something for her to hold up her head for among other women all the +days of her life, because he chose her. That's what I'd tell her." + +"Madelon!" + +"Dorothy Fair shall not cheat Burr now, when he has set his heart +upon her. It would be worse than all that has gone before. I tell you +I won't bear that. He shall have her if he wants her. He has suffered +enough." + +"But you--you," gasped Eugene. "I thought you--I thought you wanted +him yourself, Madelon." + +"I've gone past myself. All I think of now is what he wants," said +she, shortly. She turned to go out of the room; then she stopped and +spoke to him over her shoulder: "There's no need of talking any more +about it." She added: "I know what I've set out to do, and I can go +through with it." Then the door shut after her, and Eugene sat down +with his Shakespeare book. But he could not read; he sat moodily +puzzling over his sister, whose unfulfilled drama of life held his +mind better than them all. + +But puzzle as he might, he never once dreamed of the truth--that his +sister Madelon had promised to marry Lot Gordon in a month's time, +and sent her "yes" by word of mouth of Margaret Bean that morning. +Somehow, even with the ashes of the letter of proposal before his +eyes on the hearth, and his sister's "yes" ringing in his ears, +knowing as he did that Lot as well as Burr had lost his heart to her, +he could not conceive of such a possibility. He was too well +acquainted with Madelon's attitude towards Lot, and she had never +been one to walk whither she did not list for any man. He could not +imagine the possibility, well versed as he was, through his +Shakespeare lessons, in the feminine heart, of his sister's yielding +her proud maiden will to any man. He would as soon have thought of a +wild-cat which he had trailed in the woods, which knew him as his +mortal enemy, whose eyes had followed him with stealthy fury out of a +way-side bush, to unbend from the crouch of its spring and walk +purring tamely into his house at call, and fall to lapping milk out +of a saucer on the hearth. But no man can estimate the possibilities +of character under the lever of circumstances, and there is power +enough abroad to tame the savage in all nature. Madelon Hautville had +yielded to a stress of which her brother knew nothing, and he +therefore scouted the idea, if it crossed his mind like a wild fancy, +of her yielding at all. He rather came to the conclusion that the +letter had announced Burr's engagement to Dorothy Fair, and that +Madelon's "yes" had signified proud approval of it. He leaned to this +conclusion the sooner because of the miserable tendency which a +jealous heart has to force all suspicions to open its own sore. "He's +going to marry Dorothy Fair," Eugene told himself. "It was like Lot +to tell Madelon, and ask her if she was pleased with it. And that was +why she acted so. Her heart broke at first and she cried, and then +she stood up and hid it. He's going to marry Dorothy Fair!" + +Eugene had a strong imagination, whereby he could suffer a +thousandfold, if he would, every woe of his life. Sitting now by his +hearth fire, with his Shakespeare book, full of the joys and sorrows +of immortal lovers, disregarded upon his knees, he let his fancy show +him many a picture which tore his heart, although look upon it he +would. He saw Dorothy Fair in her wedding-gown; he saw her blush like +a rose through her bridal lace; he saw her following Burr up the +meeting-house aisle the Sabbath after her marriage with a soft +rustling of silken finery, and a toss of white bridal plumes over her +fair locks. He saw those glances, which he swore to himself boldly +enough then had first been his, turned upon his rival; he imagined +sweet words and caresses which he had never tasted, and were +perchance the sweeter for that, bestowed upon Burr. + +Suddenly he started up and flung down his book upon the settle, and +put on his fur cap and was out of the house. "The first turn of her +heart was towards me, and I was the first man she coupled with love +in her thoughts, and nothing can undo it," he said, aloud, fiercely +to himself as he went up the lonely snowy road; and he believed it +then. Those soft blue glances of Dorothy's came back to him so +vividly that he seemed to see them anew whenever his eyes fell upon +the way-side bushes, or the cloud-shadowed slopes of white fields, or +the dark gaps of solitude between the forest pines. + +For the first time a fierce insistence of his rights of love was upon +him. Straight to the village he went, and to Parson Fair's house. But +he did not enter; his madness was not great enough for that. He did +not enter, but he went past with a bold, searching look at all the +windows and no pretence of indifference, and up the road a little +way. Then he returned and passed the house again, and looked again; +and this time Dorothy's face showed between the dimity sweeps of her +chamber curtains. He half stopped, and then came another glance of +blue eyes which verified those that had gone before, straight into +his, which replied with a dark flash of ardor, and then Dorothy's +face went red all of a sudden, and there was a vanishing curve of +blushing cheek and a flirt aside of fair curls, and the space between +the dimity curtains was clear. + +Eugene stood still beneath the window for a few minutes. There were +watchful eyes in the neighboring windows. In the tavern-yard, farther +down the street, Dexter Beers and old Luke Basset stood, also fixedly +staring at Parson Fair's house. + +"Wonder if he thinks there's any trouble--fire or anything," said +Dexter Beers. + +"Don't see no smoke," said old Luke. + +Eugene Hautville, rapt in that abstraction of love which is the +completest in the world, and makes indeed a world of its own across +eternal spaces, knew nothing and thought nothing of outside +observers. He was half minded for a minute to enter Parson Fair's +house. Had Dorothy appeared outside, the impulse to seize her and +bear her away with him and fight for her possession against all odds, +like any male of his old savage tribe when love stirred his veins, +would have been strong within him. But she did not come, nor appear +again in the window. She stood well around the curtain and peeped; +but he did not know that, and presently he went away. + +When he passed the tavern Dexter Beers hailed him. "Say, anythin' +wrong to the parson's?" + +"No," returned Eugene, sharply, and strode on. + +"Didn't know but you see smoke, you were lookin' up at the house so +stiddy," called Beers, conciliatingly; but Eugene swung down the road +without another look. All his grace of manner was forgot in the stir +of passion within him. What had Dorothy Fair meant by that look? Was +she betrothed to Burr Gordon? Was she playing with him for her own +amusement? And what was he to do, what could he do, for the sake of +his love, with honor? + +Eugene left the road after he had cleared the village, and struck off +across the fields for a long tramp through snowy solitudes as well +known to him as, and better suited to him for perplexed thoughts +than, any place in his home. In a way, out-doors was the truest home +of all these Hautvilles, with the strain of wild nomadic blood in +their veins. + +The sight of the little fireless dwellings of woodland things, the +empty nests revealed on the naked trees, the scattered berries on +leafless bushes, the winter larders of birds, the tiny track of a +wild hare or a partridge in the snow, disturbed less the current of +their inmost life, as being more the wonted surroundings of their +existence, than all the sounds and sights and savors within four +domestic walls. + +Eugene tramped on for miles over paths well known to him, which were +hidden now beneath the snow, pondering upon himself and Dorothy Fair, +and never gave his sister, whose guardian he had been, another +thought. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +Madelon, half an hour after Eugene had left, put on her cloak and +hood, and went down the road to Lot Gordon's. "I want to see him a +minute," she said to Margaret Bean when the woman answered her knock, +and went in with no more ado. Her face was white and stern in the +shadow of her hood. + +Margaret Bean recoiled a little when she looked at her. "He's up," +said she, backing before her, half as if she were afraid. "I guess +you can walk right in." + +Madelon went into the sitting-room, and Lot's face confronted her at +once, white and peaked, with hollow blue eyes lit, as of old, with a +mocking intelligence of life. + +He was sunken amid multifold wrappings in a great chair before the +fire, with a great leathern-bound book on his knees. Beside him was a +little stand with writing-paper thereon, and sealing-wax and a +candle, a quill pen and an inkstand. All the room was lined with +books, and was full of the musty smell of them. + +Madelon went straight up to Lot and spoke out with no word of +greeting. "I have sent your answer," said she. "I will keep my +promise, but have you thought well of what you do, Lot Gordon?" + +Lot looked up at her and smiled, and the smile gave a curiously +gentle look to his face, in spite of the sharp light in his eyes. + +"The thought has been my meat and my drink, my medicine and my breath +of life," said he. + +"If I were a man I would rather--take a snake to my breast than a +woman who held me as one--" + +"Two parallel lines can sooner meet than a woman know the heart of a +man. What do I care so I hold you to mine?" + +Madelon stood farther away from him, but her eyes did not fall before +his. + +"Why did you lie" said she. "You knew I stabbed you, and not +yourself. You are a liar, Lot Gordon." + +But Lot still smiled as he answered her. "However it may be with +other men, no happening has come to me since I set foot upon this +earth that I brought not upon myself by my own deeds. The hand that +set the knife in my side was my own, and I have not lied." + +"You have lied. Tell them the truth." + +"I have told the truth that lies at the bottom of the well." + +"Call them all in now, and tell them--I--did it, I--" + +Lot Gordon raised himself a little, and looked at her with the +mocking expression gone suddenly from his face. "What good do you +think it would do if I did, Madelon?" he said, with a strange sadness +in his voice. + +She looked at him. + +"I shall not die of the wound. You can't escape me by prison or a +disgraceful death, and as for me, do you think it would make any +difference to me if all the village pointed at you, Madelon?" + +Madelon looked at him as if she were frozen. + +"All the way to be set loose from your promise is by your own +breaking it," said Lot. + +"I will keep my promise," said Madelon, shutting her lips hard upon +her words. She turned away. + +"Madelon," said Lot. + +She went towards the door as if she did not hear. + +"Madelon." + +She turned her white face slightly towards him and paused. + +"Won't you come here to me a moment?" + +"I cannot until I am driven to it!" she cried out, passion leaping +into her voice like fire. "I cannot go near you, Lot Gordon!" + +She opened the door, and then she heard a sob. She hesitated a +second, then looked around; and Lot Gordon's thin body was curled +about in his chair and quivering with sobs like any child's. + +Madelon closed the door, and went back and stood over him. She looked +at him with a curious expression of pity struggling with loathing, as +she might have looked at some wounded reptile. + +"Well, I am here," she said, in a harsh voice. + +"All my life my heart has had nothing, and now what it has it has +not," moaned Lot, as if it had been to his mother. He looked up at +her with his hollow blue eyes swimming in tears. He seemed for a +minute like a little ailing boy appealing for sympathy, and the +latent motherhood in the girl responded to that. + +"You know I cannot help that, Lot," she said. "You know how you +forced me into this to save the one I do love." + +"Oh, Madelon, can't you love me?" + +She shrank away from him and shook her head, but still her dark eyes +were soft upon his face. + +"Does not love for you count anything? I love you more than he--I do, +Madelon." + +"It is no use talking, I can never love you, Lot," she said, but +gently. + +"It ought to count. Love ought to count, dear. It is the best thing +in the world we have to give. And I have given it to you; oh, God, +how have I given it to you, Madelon!" + +"Lot, don't--it's no use." + +"Listen--you must listen, dear. You must hear it once. It can't turn +you more against me. You don't know how I have loved you--you don't +know. Listen. Never a morning have I waked but the knowledge of you +came before the consciousness of myself. Never a night I fell asleep +but 'twas you, you I lost last, and not myself. When I have been sick +the sting of my longing for you has dulled all my pain of body. If I +die I see not how that can die with me, for it is of my soul. I see +not why I must not bear it forever." + +"Lot, I must go!" + +"Listen, Madelon; you must listen. When I have taken my solitary +walks in the woods and pried into the secrets of the little wild +things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I +found always, always, that you were in them--I cannot tell you how, +but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in every bird-call +and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed things across the +open. Every white alder-bush in the spring raised you up anew before +me to madden me with vain longing, and every red sumach in the fall. +When I have sat here alone every book I have opened has had in it a +meaning of you which the writer knew not of. You are in all my +forethoughts and my memories and my imaginations. The future has your +face, and the past. My whole world is made up of you and my vain +hunger. Oh, love, and not toil, is the curse of man!" + +"You knew about Burr," Madelon said, in a quiet, agitated voice. +"Why--did you?" + +Lot gave a sharp cry, as if he had been wounded anew. "Oh," he cried, +"you are blind, blind, blind--a woman is born blind to love! If I had +had the face and the body of him it would have been me you would have +turned to, Madelon. Don't you know? can't you see? He has been false +to you, he cares no more for you. But if he had? In the end it is +love and love alone that sweetens life, and what could his love be to +mine?" + +Madelon turned away again. "I can't stand here any longer, Lot," she +said, and moved towards the door. + +But Lot called her piteously: "Madelon, come back! If you have any +mercy, come back!" + +She stood irresolute, frowning; then she went back. "What is it?" she +asked, impatiently. + +"Madelon, kiss me once." + +"I can't--I can't! Don't ask that of me, Lot." + +"Madelon, once!" + +Madelon bent over him, keeping her body stiffly aloof, and kissed him +on his hollow forehead. Lot closed his eyes and smiled like a +contented child; then suddenly he opened them upon Madelon, and the +look in them was not a child's. She shrank away with a strong +shudder, flushing with anger and shame, and made resolutely for the +door again. She looked back and spoke out sharply to him, with her +hand on the latch: "Mind you do not say one word about--what I said +I'd do, until the last." Then she went out, flinging to the door +quickly lest she hear Lot's voice again. + +When she got home there was no one there. Eugene had not returned. +She went about preparing dinner as usual; it was on the table when +the men, all except Eugene, came home, and none of them dreamed she +had left the house. They inquired where Eugene was, and she replied +that she did not know. They did not suspect that she had taken +advantage of this lack of guardianship, and yet there was something +unwonted in her manner which led them to look at each other furtively +when they first noticed it. The perfect poise of decision at which +she had arrived affected their minds in some subtle fashion. Eugene, +when he returned late in the afternoon, noticed the change in her, in +spite of his own perturbation. He looked hard at her staid face, +fixed into a sort of unquestioning and dignified acquiescence with +misery, but he said nothing. Madelon, in this state, was not to be +questioned even by her father. He simply muttered to himself, as he +strode out of the room, that she was a woman. + +Madelon's manner was the same as the days went on. There ceased to be +any question as to her sanity among her father and brothers. She no +longer paced overhead like a wild thing. She no longer made fierce +outbreaks of despairing appeal. They no longer kept watch over her +lest she commit some folly, and became easier in their minds about +her. + +They made no objections when, three weeks later, she asked for the +sleigh and the roan to go to New Salem and make some purchases for +herself. She went early in the afternoon, and returned in good season +with her parcels. They did not dream that she had been in a strange +spirit of bitterness and shameful misery and feminine pride to +purchase her wedding-gown for her marriage with Lot Gordon. + +Her frantic and unreasoning impulse of concealment was still strong. +It was almost as if the whole horror of it were not so plainly thrust +upon her if none but she knew it; then there was the agony of shame +which made her fain to turn her back and deafen her ears to her own +self, let alone all these others. + +They rather wondered, the next morning, when they saw Madelon seated +at work upon some shining lengths of silk, at the magnificence of her +purchase in New Salem; but they knew that she had a little private +fund of her own, which they had never questioned her right to spend. + +"Guess she's been saving her egg-and-butter money," Abner said, when +she went out for something. + +His father nodded. "Glad she's got a new gown. Guess she'll show +folks she ain't quite done for on account of that fellow," he said. + +When Madelon was seated at her work again, and he passed her to leave +the room, he laid a heavy, caressing hand on her black head. "Glad +ye've got ye a handsome gown," said he. "It's money well spent." + +That day there was a great snow-storm--the last of the season. There +had been many such that winter. Snow fell upon snow, and the bare +ground was never seen. This time the storm lasted two days. On the +morning of the third the sun came out and the wind blew. There was a +northern gale all day. The new snow arose like a white spirit from +its downfall, and was again all abroad in the air. It moved across +the fields in great diamond-glittering shafts; it crested itself over +the brows of hills in flashing waves; it lengthened its sharp slants +of white light from hour to hour against the windward sides of the +fences and houses. + +On the morning of the next day everything was still. The snow lay +transfixed in blue whirlpools around the trees; the fields were full +of frozen eddies, and the hill-tops curled with white wave-crests +which never broke. There was a dead calm, and the mercury was +fourteen degrees below zero. Everything seemed in the white region of +death after the delirium of storm. That morning Madelon Hautville, +after her household tasks were done, sat down again to sew her +wedding-dress. The silk was of changeable tints, and flashed in +patches of green and gold as it lay over her knee and swept around +her to the floor. + +All the others had gone, but presently, as she sewed, Richard came in +with some parcels. He had been on an errand to the store. He tossed +the packages on the dresser, then he went and stood directly in front +of his sister, looking at her. + +"I want to know if it's true," said he. + +Then Madelon knew that he had heard. "Yes," said she. + +"And that is--" Richard pointed at the silk. + +"Yes." + +Richard continued to look at his sister and the gorgeous silk. There +was consternation in his look, and withal a certain relief. Boy as he +was, he reasoned it out astutely. If Madelon married Lot Gordon the +merest shadow of suspicion that her confession had been true would +not cling to her, and Richard hated Burr, and was fiercely triumphant +that he should not think his sister dying for love of him; and then +Burr would lose the Gordon money. + +All at once Madelon rose up, let her silk breadths slip rustling to +the floor, and took Richard by the shoulder. "Richard," she said, +"why could you not have told the truth about the knife, and not +forced me to this? Why could you not?" + +The boy looked aside from her doggedly. "I don't know what you mean +about a knife," said he, but his voice shook. + +"Yes, you do know, Richard! It is all over now. I must marry Lot. I +have promised. I shall not try to escape it--I shall not try again to +make people believe it was I. If you were to tell the truth now it +would do no good. But you must tell me this, Richard. How came Burr +Gordon's knife there instead of yours?" + +The boy hesitated. + +"Richard, you know you can trust me." + +"Well," said Richard, slowly, in a low voice, "I came right up behind +Burr before you were hardly out of sight. I'd got uneasy about your +going home alone, and I'd thought I'd follow you unbeknown to you, +and turn 'round and go back when you were safe in sight of home. Burr +pulled my knife out of the wound quick and wiped it on the snow. +'Take it quick,' says he, and I knew what he meant, and put it in my +pocket, and slid out of sight in the bushes; and then he whipped out +his knife and laid it in the pool of blood, and the others came up, +and 'twas all done in a second. That's how." + +"He did it to save me," said Madelon, and her voice was fuller of +exultant sweetness than it had ever been in a song. + +"He's a rascal, that's what he is!" said Richard. "If he hadn't +treated you so, it wouldn't ever have happened." + +"He did it to save me," said Madelon, as if to herself; "it's worth +all I'm going to do to save him." She sat down again, and took up +her wedding-dress, and resumed sewing. Richard stood looking at her a +minute; then he got his gun off the hooks where he kept it, put on +his fur cap, and went out. + +Madelon sat and sewed, in a broad slant of wintry sunshine, for an +hour longer. Then a shadow passed suddenly athwart the floor, the +door opened, and Burr Gordon was in the room. He came straight across +to her, but she sat still and drew her needle through her +wedding-silk. + +"Madelon!" he cried out, "is this true that I have just heard? +Madelon!"--Burr Gordon's handsome face was white as death, and he +breathed hard, as if he had been running--"Madelon! tell me, for +God's sake, is it--true?" + +"Yes," said Madelon. She took another stitch. The self-restraint of +her New England mother was upon her then. Burr Gordon, betrothed to +Dorothy Fair, loving her not, yet still noble enough and kind enough +to have perilled his life to save hers, should know nothing of the +greater sacrifice she was making for him. + +"You are going to marry--Lot?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, my God!" + +Burr Gordon stood a moment looking at the girl sewing the breadths of +shining silk. Then he went over to the settle and sat down there and +bent over, leaning his head on his hands. He knew no more at that +moment of Madelon's mind than an utter stranger. + +It well might be, he thought, that she no longer cared for him. It +was not long since she had seemed to, but women, he had always heard, +were fickle, and he had so treated her that it might have turned any +woman's heart cold. And his cousin Lot had the family wealth, and if +she married him she would inherit it, and not he. What could he say +to her, sewing so calmly upon her wedding-dress, seemingly in utter +acquiescence and content with her fate? Could he take another step +without going deeper into the slough of shame and distress where it +seemed to him he already stood? And there was Dorothy. + +Madelon never glanced at him as she sewed. Presently he arose and +went over to her again. "Madelon," he said, hesitatingly, coloring +red, "tell me you do not have any hard feelings towards me? I know I +deserve it." + +"You deserve nothing; it is I," she said, in a low voice. + +"_You!_" + +"I know what you did to save my life," she said. Her voice gave out a +rich thrill, like a musical tone, as she spoke. She bent lower over +her work. + +"That was nothing. Madelon"--he paused a moment; she was +silent--"Madelon, tell me. Are you--are you satisfied--with this step +you are going to take?" + +"Yes." + +"There is nothing I can do? You know I would do--anything to-- You +know if you wished--I would do whatever you said." + +"You will marry Dorothy Fair," Madelon said, in such a tone of calm +assertion that he quailed before it. + +"Then you--are satisfied to--marry Lot-- It is your wish?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, my God!" said Burr, and went out, while Madelon took another +stitch in her wedding-gown. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +However the tale of Madelon's and Lot's engagement had found +mouth--whether Margaret Bean had vented her knowledge when it grew +too big for her or not--it was scarce one day before the whole +village was agape with it. With that tendency of the human mind born +of involuntary self-knowledge which leads it to suspect a selfish +motive in all untoward actions, many gave unhesitatingly a reason for +Madelon's choice. + +The women nodded astutely at each other, and the men exchanged shrewd +affirmative grunts. "She's goin' to marry Lot to pay off Burr," they +all agreed. "She'll get all the money." + +Madelon herself had never thought of that. She had never considered +the fact that her marriage with Lot would rob Burr of his prospective +wealth; and, if she had, she would have dismissed the thought as of +no moment. Capacity for revenge of that sort was not in her; even the +imagination of it was lacking. She would simply have resolved to give +the property to Burr if she should outlive Lot, and she would have +carried out her resolution. Consciously, perhaps, this consideration +was no more evident to her father and her brothers than to herself. +The Hautvilles were not mercenary, and retaliation, involving +personal profit at the expense of an enemy, was not of their code. +They did have, however, a consideration no less selfish, in a way, +and no less acute when they heard the news. One and all thought, "Now +Madelon will be cleared of all suspicion that she may have brought +upon herself. Nobody will believe that Lot Gordon would marry a girl +who attempted his life. Every hint of disgrace will be removed from +her and us all by this marriage." + +Louis, when he heard the news, gave an involuntary glance at his own +hands at the thought of Madelon's crimsoned ones, to which he had +tried to blind his memory. "Well, maybe it's the best thing that +could happen," he said, grimly, but his wonder over it was great. He +knew well enough, however he tried to hide the knowledge from +himself, that Madelon's story had been true. He looked at his brother +Richard, and Richard looked back at him; and one's knowledge for once +faced the other's boldly in their utter astonishment. Then they +nodded at each other in a stern understanding of assent. It was best +their sister should cover her crime and avert the disgrace, which she +had seemed to hang over all of them, in that way. + +When the male Hautvilles came home to dinner, on the noon of the day +after Burr called, Madelon knew at once that they had all heard. They +sat down to the table and ate in silence. None of them spoke a word +to Madelon on the subject, but she knew they had heard. After dinner +they all went out again except her father. He stood on the hearth, +filling his pipe moodily, with an automatic motion of his fingers, +his eyes aloof. Madelon moved about with quick, decided motions, +clearing the dinner-table. David, when the tobacco was well packed in +his pipe-bowl, turned his eyes mechanically upon the glowing coals on +the hearth, but made no motion to light it. He looked slowly and +furtively about presently at Madelon's wedding-silk, which lay heaped +in a chair with a green and gold shimmer, as of leaves and flowers. +All unmoved by, and oblivious of, the splendor of woman's gear was +David Hautville usually, but this silk, radiant with the weaving of +party-lights, affected him with a memory of old happiness, so vague +that it was scarce more than a memory of a memory. In splendid silken +raiment had Madelon's mother gone as a bride years ago. It had been +in reality widely different from this gown of Madelon's, but still, +looking at this, David Hautville's masculine eyes saw dimly beyond it +another dapple of gorgeous tints, and heard a soft rustle of silken +skirts out of the past. He would not have said that this bright mass +of silk in the chair made him think of his wife's wedding-gown, but +he knew by that thought it was Madelon's. He stared at it, scowling +over his great mustache. Then he looked slowly around at his +daughter. She was just coming out of the pantry, and faced him as he +spoke. + +"I suppose this is true I've heard," said he. + +Madelon's face blazed red before his eyes, but her mouth was firm and +hard, and her eyes unflinching. "Yes, sir," she replied; and she took +a dish from the table and turned about, and went again into the +pantry, carrying it. + +David Hautville, rearing his great height before the fire, casting a +long shadow over the room, stood, holding his unlighted pipe, and +staring again at the wedding-silk, until his daughter returned. Then +he brought his gaze to bear upon her again. + +"I suppose you've thought over what you're going to do, and feel it's +for the best," said he, with a kind of stern embarrassment. David +Hautville felt no resentment because his daughter had not confided +her engagement to him. From his very lack of understanding of the +feminine character, and his bewilderment over it, he was disposed to +give his daughter a wide latitude in a matter of this kind. Not +comprehending the feminine gait to matrimony, but recognizing its +inevitability, he was inclined to stand silently out of the road, +unless his prejudices were too violently shocked. He had also a mild +respect for, and understanding of, reticence concerning one's own +affairs, and was, moreover, furtively satisfied with the match. + +"Yes, I have," answered Madelon, calmly. + +"How soon were you calculating--" asked her father, pressing the +tobacco harder into the pipe-bowl, and casting a meditative eye at +the coals. + +"He said a month--that was three weeks ago Monday. To-day is +Wednesday." Madelon Hautville spoke with her proud chin raised, and +her eyes as compelling as a queen's; but in spite of herself there +came into her voice the tone of one who counts the days to death. + +Her father looked at her sharply. She turned again towards her task +at the table. "Well, Lot Gordon can give ye a good home," said he. +"His health ain't very good, that's the most I see about it. But he +may last a number of years yet--folks in consumption do sometimes; +and I hear he's gettin' over that cut he give himself. I suppose he +did that because he thought you wouldn't have him." + +Madelon, moving about the table, did not say a word. + +"It must have been that," said David Hautville. "I suppose he thought +you favored--" he was about to speak Burr's name; then he stopped +short. He was usually one to plunge upon dangerous ground, but this +time something stopped him--perhaps a look in his daughter's face. He +laid his pipe carefully on the mantel-shelf, went over to Madelon, +and laid a heavily tender hand on her shoulder. + +"D'ye want any money to buy your wedding-fixings with?" he said, in a +half-whisper. + +"I've got all I want," replied Madelon, wincing as if he had struck +her. + +"Because I've sold some skins, lately, and wood." David plunged a +hand into his pocket, and began to pull out a leather pouch jingling +with coins. + +"I've got all the money I want, father," said Madelon, catching her +breath a little, but keeping her face steady. Could her father have +understood, if she had told him, the pretty maiden providence, almost +like one of the primal instincts, which had led her to save, year +after year, little sums from her small earnings, towards her +wedding-outfit? Could he, with his powerful masculine grasp of the +large woes of life, have sensed this lesser one, and fairly known the +piteous struggle it cost Madelon to spend her poor little wealth, +which was to have furnished adornment for her bridal happiness with +her lover, for such a purpose as this? Had she turned upon him then +and there, and told him that she hated Lot Gordon, and would rather +lie down in her grave than be his wife, he might have grasped that +indeed, although not in her full sense of it, for the same sense of +misery of that kind comes not to a man and a woman; but the other he +would have puzzled over and solved it by his one sweeping solution of +all feminine problems--by femininity itself. + +However, he continued to stand beside his daughter, looking at her +across that great gulf of original conceptions of things which love +itself can never quite bridge. Tears came into his keen black eyes, +and his voice was hoarse when he spoke again. "Well, Madelon," said +David Hautville, with a firmer laying on of his heavy hand on his +daughter's shoulder, "ye've been a good daughter and sister, and +we're all of us glad you've got over this last foolishness, and we +don't lay it up against ye, and--we'll all miss ye when ye're gone." + +Madelon moved quietly away from her father's roughly tender hand. "I +thought maybe the Widow Scoville would be willing to come here and +live," said she. "She's a good cook and a good housekeeper. I'm going +to see her about it." + +"Well, we'll see," said David Hautville, huskily--"we'll see." He +turned away, and looked irresolutely at the shelf whereon his pipe +lay, at the wedding-silk on the chair, at his great boots in the +corner at the outer door, then at his bass-viol leaning in the corner +which the dresser formed against the wall, and a light of decision +flashed into his eyes. + +He drew his old arm-chair nearer the fire, carried the viol over to +it, set it between his knees, flung an arm around its neck and began +to play. His great chest heaved tenderly over it; its sweetly +sonorous voice spoke to his soul. Here was the friend who vexed David +Hautville with no problems of character or sex, but filled his simple +understanding without appeal. These chords in which the viol spoke +were from the foundations of things, like the spring-time and the +harvest and the frosts; they abided eternally through all the vain +speculations of life, and sounded above the grave. No imagination of +a great artist had David Hautville, but his music was to him like his +woodcraft. He traced out the chords and the harmonies with the same +fervor that he followed the course of a stream or climbed a +mountain-path. A great player was he, although the power of creation +was not in him, for he fingered his viol with the ardor of a soul set +in its favorite way of all others. As David Hautville played his +great resonant viol he forgot all about his own perplexity and his +daughter's love-troubles; but she, listening as she worked, did not +forget. + +Madelon, swept around with these sweet waves of sounds, never once +had her memory of her own misery submerged. A strange double +consciousness she had, as she listened, of her senses and her soul. +All her nerves lapsed involuntarily into delight at the sounds they +loved, and all her soul wept above all melodies and harmonies in her +ears. The spirit of an artist had Madelon, and could, had she wished, +have made the songs she sung; and for that very reason music could +never carry her away from her own self. + +She finished her household tasks and sat down again to sew upon her +wedding-gown. After a while her father ceased playing, and leaned his +viol tenderly back in its corner, pulled on his great boots, put on +his leather jacket and his fur cap, lighted his pipe, shouldered his +gun, and set out with his eyes full of the abstraction of one who +follows alone a different path. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Then Madelon sat alone, sewing, setting nice stitches in her +green-and-gold silk. Like other women, heretofore when she had sewn a +new gown she had builded for herself air-castles of innocent vanity +and love when she should be dressed in it. Now she builded no more, +but sat and sewed among the ruins of all her happy maiden fancies. +She had given herself no care concerning any other arrangements for +her wedding than this gown--she felt even no curiosity concerning it. +She left all that to Lot, as a victim leaves the details of his death +to the executioner. She supposed he would send for her and tell her +before long. When she heard a scraping step at the door she knew +instinctively that the message had come. + +Margaret Bean's husband's simple old face confronted her when she +opened the door. The weather was moderating fast that morning. The +sun had the warmth of spring, and the old man stood in a shower of +rainbow drops from the melting icicles on the eaves. He handed her a +letter, backed clumsily and apologetically from under the drops, then +retreated carefully down the slippery path, his clumsy old joints +jolting. + +Madelon, back in the kitchen, stood for a second looking at the +letter. Then she opened it, and read the message written in Lot +Gordon's strange poetic style: + +"Madelon,--The rose waits in the garden for her lover, because he has +wings and she has none. But had the rose wings and her lover none, +then would she leave her garden and fly to him with her honey in her +heart, for love must be found. + + "Lot Gordon." + +Enough strength of New England blood Madelon had to feel towards Lot +a new impulse of scorn that he should write her thus, instead of +bidding her come, simply, like a man, displaying his power over her +that they both knew. + +Small store of honey did she bear in her heart when she set out to +obey Lot's call. She hurried along, indeed, with her cloak flying out +at either side, like red wings in the south wind, but not from +eagerness to see her lover. She was in constant dread lest she meet +Burr on the road; but she gained Lot's house without seeing him or +knowing that his miserable, jealous eyes watched her from an opposite +window. + +Burr was up in his chamber when Madelon went into his cousin's house. +Presently he went down-stairs, where his mother was, with a face so +full of the helpless appeal of agony that she looked at him as she +used to do when he came in hurt from play. + +"What is the matter, Burr, are you sick?" she said, in her quiet +voice. She was sitting in a rocking-chair in the sun with her +knitting-work. She swayed on gently as she spoke, and her long, +delicate fingers still slipped the yarn over the needle. + +"Yes, I am sick, mother; I am sick to death," Burr groaned out. Then +he went down on the floor at his mother's feet, and hid his face in +her lap, as he had used to do when he was a child in trouble. Mrs. +Gordon's stern repose of manner had never seemed to repel any +demonstration of her son's. Now she continued to knit above his head, +but he apparently felt no lack of sympathy in her. + +She asked no more questions, but waited for him to speak. "She's just +gone in there," he half sobbed out, presently. "Oh, mother, what +shall I do--what shall I do?" + +"You'll have to get used to it," said his mother. "You'll have to +make up your mind to it, Burr." + +"Mother, I can't! Oh, God, I can't see her every day there with him. +Mother, we've got to sell out and move away. You'll be willing to, +won't you? Won't you, mother?" + +"You forget Dorothy. She can't leave the town where her father is." + +"I wish I could forget Dorothy in honor!" Burr cried out. + +"You can't," said his mother, "and there's an end of it." + +"I know it," said Burr. He got up and stood looking moodily out of +the window. + +"You know," said his mother, still knitting, "how I have felt from +the very first about Madelon Hautville. I never approved of her for a +wife for you; I approve of her still less now, after her violent +conduct and her consent to marry Lot, whom she cannot care for. +Still, since you feel as you do about it, I should be glad to have +you marry her, if such a thing could be done with any show of honor; +but it cannot. You know that as well as I. You must marry Dorothy +Fair, and Madelon is going to marry Lot. Leaving everything else out +of the question, it is out of your power to say anything on account +of the money which you will lose by her marriage with him. You know +what she might think." + +"Curse the money!" Burr cried out. "Curse the money and the position +and all the damned lot of bubbles that come between a man and what's +worth more, and will last!" + +"Burr, don't talk so!" + +"I can't help it, mother. I mean it. Curse it, I say, and the +infernal weakness that makes a man see double on women's faces when +there's only one woman in his heart! Mother, why didn't you know +about that last, so you could tell me when I was a boy?" + +His mother colored a little. "I never taught you to be fickle," she +said, with a kind of shamed bewilderment. + +"I never have been fickle. This is something else worse." Burr +looked at his mother again, with the old expression of his when he +had come in hurt from play. No matter how long Burr Gordon might +live, no matter what brave deeds he might do--and there was brave +stuff in him, for he would have gone to the gallows rather than +betray Madelon--there would always be in him the appeal of a child to +the woman who loved him. "Mother, I don't know how to bear it," he +said. + +"You must bear it like a man." + +"It is hard to bear the consequence of unmanly conduct like a man," +said Burr, shortly; then he went out, as if the old comfort from his +mother had failed him. As for her, she finished heeling her stocking, +and then went out into the kitchen and made a pudding that her son +loved for his dinner. + +Burr went back up-stairs to his cold chamber, and watched for Madelon +to come out of Lot's house. It seemed to him she was there an +eternity, but in reality it was only a half-hour. + +She had found Lot sitting as usual before the fire with a +leather-covered volume on his knees. "I have come," she said, +standing just inside the door; then she started at the look he gave +her. There was a significance in it which she could not understand. + +He did not say a word for full five minutes while she waited. He did +not even ask her to be seated. "Do you know the date?" he asked then, +harshly. There was no hint of roses and honey in his speech and +manner to offend her like his letter. + +"Yes, I do." + +"You know the month is up on Monday?" + +"I am not likely to forget." + +"True," said Lot; "it is the last thing a girl will forget--the day +set for her happy marriage." He laughed. + +Madelon's face contracted. She set her mouth harder, and looked +straight at Lot. "When you have done laughing," said she, "will you +tell me what you want of me? I have to go home and get dinner." + +Lot still looked at her with his mocking smile. "I wished to inquire +if you are ready to become my bride on Monday," said he. + +"Yes, I am ready. Is that all?" + +"I wished also to inquire if you have any plans concerning the +ceremony which you would like carried out." + +"I have none." + +"Then will it suit you to come here on Monday at two o'clock in the +afternoon, since the doctor tells me I shall scarcely be able to go +out myself, and be united to me by Parson Fair?" + +"I am ready to carry out any plans you may make." + +"Your father and your brothers and my cousin Burr and his mother +will, of course, be present at our wedding," said Lot, with wary eyes +upon her face. + +Madelon looked at him as proudly as ever. "Very well," said she. She +waited a minute longer; then she laid her hand on the doorlatch. + +"Wait a minute!" Lot cried. He looked at her hesitatingly. A flush +crept over his white face. "Madelon," he began; then his cough +interrupted him. He tried to force it back with fierce swallowings, +but had to yield. He bent over double, and shook with rattling +volleys. Madelon waited, her eyes averted, without a sign of pity. +The near approach of her wedding-day caused a revolt of her whole +maiden soul towards him so intense that it was as a contraction of +the muscles. She was utterly hard to his suffering. At last he raised +himself, panting, and cast a pale look around at her. + +"Well, what do you want?" she said. + +He motioned feebly towards is desk on the other side of the room. +"Top drawer," he whispered, hoarsely; "left-hand corner--find--leather +case--bring to me." + +Madelon crossed the room to the desk, opened the drawer, found the +leather case, and carried it to Lot. "Here," said she. + +"Open it," Lot whispered. + +Madelon pressed the spring in the case, and held it out open towards +Lot without a glance at its contents. + +"Look," he said. + +Madelon glanced at the little gold watch, curled round with a long +gold chain, which the case contained, and continued to hold it out +towards Lot. "I've looked," said she. "Here, take it; I must go +home." + +"Oh, Madelon, it's for you." + +"I don't want it." + +"Take it--Madelon, won't you have it? I got it for you." + +"No, I don't want it. Shall I put it back in the drawer?" + +"Don't you think it's a pretty watch?" + +"Yes. Shall I put it back?" + +"You haven't any watch, Madelon." + +"I don't want one." Madelon closed the case impatiently, and turned +away. + +"Oh, Madelon, won't you take it?" Lot begged, piteously. + +"I told you no--I do not care for it." Madelon put the case back in +the desk drawer. Then she drew her cloak together, and went to the +door again. + +"Oh," said Lot Gordon, weakly, in his hoarse voice, "the hardest +thing in the whole world for Love to bruise himself against is the +tender heart of a woman, when 'tis not inclined his way." + +"Good-bye," said Madelon, and shut the door behind her fiercely. That +last speech of Lot's, which, like many of his speeches, seemed to her +no human vernacular, added terror to her aversion of him. "He's more +like a book than a man," she had often thought, and the fancy seized +her now that the great leather-bound book upon his knees, and all +those leather-bound books against his walls, had somehow possessed +him with an uncanny life of their own. + +And she may have been in a measure right, for Lot Gordon, during his +whole life, had dealt indirectly with human hearts through their +translations in his beloved books rather than with the beating hearts +of men and women around him. Still, although he spoke like one who +learns a language from books instead of the familiar converse of +people, and his thoughts clothed themselves in images which those +about him disdained and threw off as impeding their hard race of +life, poor Lot Gordon's heart beat in time with the hearts of his +kind. But that Madelon could not know because hers was so set against +it. + +She hurried out of the house and the yard, dreading again lest she +should encounter Burr. But her haste was of no avail, for he came +straight down his opposite terraces, and met her when she reached the +road. + +She would have pushed past then, but he stood squarely before her. +"Madelon, can't I speak with you a minute?" he pleaded. Madelon saw, +without seeming to look, that Burr's handsome face was white as death +and haggard. + +"Are you sick?" she asked, suddenly. "Why do you look so? What is the +matter with you?" and she put a half-bitter, half-anxiously +compassionate weight upon the _you_. + +"I believe I am going mad," Burr groaned, with the quick grasp of a +man at the pity of the woman he loves. "Oh, Madelon!" He held out +his hands towards her like a child, but she stood back from him, and +looked straight at him with sharp questioning in her eyes. + +"Do you mean--" she began; then stopped, and questioned him with her +eyes again. She was seized with the belief, which filled her at once +with agony and an impulse of fierce protection like that of a mother +defending her young with her own wounded bosom, that Burr had had a +falling out with Dorothy. + +"Oh, Madelon!" Burr said again, and then he could say no more for +very shame and honor. He had run out, indeed, in a half-frenzy. + +"She _shall_ not play you false!" Madelon cried out. "Dorothy Fair +_shall_ keep her word with you." + +Burr looked at her, bewildered. + +"Marry her at once," Madelon cried, with a quick rush of her +words--"at once. Do you hear me, Burr Gordon? It's all the way to do +with a girl like that. Do you hear me?" + +"Yes, I hear you," Burr said, slowly, as if he were stunned. + +"Dorothy Fair _shall_ keep her promise to you--I will make her. She +shall marry you whenever you say. I will go this very day and see +her." + +"There is no need for you to do that, Madelon. I will marry her at +once, as you advise. I think she will be willing," Burr said, slowly +and coldly. Then he left her without another word, and went up his +terraces with his back bent like an old man's. He was holding hard to +his heart the surety that Madelon no longer cared for him, for it is +scarcely within the imagination of either man or woman that one can +love and yet give away. But by the time he entered the house his +spirit had awakened within him, and he made a proud resolve that +since Madelon so advised and was herself to marry that he would marry +Dorothy Fair as soon as she should be willing. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +As for Madelon, she went home with her mind diverted from her own +unhappiness by Burr's, and, in spite of his assurance, might have +gone to visit her righteous anger upon Dorothy had she not heard that +very night that Burr and Parson Fair's daughter were to be married in +a month's time. + +The next day Lot sent again for her, and she obeyed, with her proud +sense of duty to her future husband, although every step she took +towards him carried her farther away. His conduct began to puzzle her +more than ever. Again he sent her to the desk drawer, and this time +for a roll of precious rose-colored satin stuff, fit for a queen's +gown; but she would have none of that either, although he pleaded +with her to take it. When she started to go away he called her back, +and called her back, and when she came had nothing to say, until she +lost patience and went home. + +And the day after that he sent again, and there was a great carved +comb for her in the desk drawer, and some rose-colored satin shoes; +but she thrust them back indignantly. "Understand once for all, Lot +Gordon," said she, "you I will take, as I would take my death, +because I have pledged my word; but your presents I will not take." + +"I have been buying them and treasuring them, against the time you +would have them, for years," pleaded Lot. + +"I tell you I will not have them," said she. + +That day, as the day before, he called her back again and again, and +looked at her as if he had something on his mind which he would and +could not say; and she went home at last resolved not to go again +until she was obliged to for the marriage ceremony. + +The next day was Sunday, and Madelon went to meeting and sang, as +usual. Burr was not there, but pretty Dorothy was, and looked up at +Madelon with a kind of wondering alarm when she sang. Madelon had the +heart of one who sings her death-song, and there was something of it +in her face that morning. Unconsciously people looked past her, when +her voice rang out, to see some dead wall of horror at her back to +account for the strange tones in it and the look in her face. She had +never looked handsomer, however, than she did that day. Her cheeks +had the bloom of roses, and her black eyes seemed to give out their +own light, like stars. + +She held up her head like a queen as she sang, and her wonderful +voice sounded through and beyond the viols and violins, and all the +other singing voices. The agony within her was great to penetrate the +consciousness of others through this fair triumphant mask. + +Madelon looked better than her rival that morning. Dorothy sat, as +usual, daintily clad in her Sabbath silks and swan's-downs, with a +sweet atmosphere as of a flower around her; but her delicate color +had faded, and her blue eyes looked as if she had been weeping and +had not slept. She never glanced once at Eugene Hautville up in the +singing-seats; but sometimes he looked at her, and then her face +quivered under his eyes. + +That noon Lot Gordon sent again for Madelon, but this time she +refused to go. "Tell him I am busy and can't come," she told Margaret +Bean's husband, who had brought the note. The old man went off, +muttering over her message to himself lest he forget it. She heard +him repeating it in a childish sing-song--"Tell him I'm busy and +can't come; tell him I'm busy and can't come"--as he went out of the +yard, slanting his old body before the south wind. The wind blew from +the south that day in great gusts as warm as summer; the air was full +of the sounds of running water, of sweet, interrupted tinkles and +sudden gurgles and steady outpourings as from a thousand pitchers. +The snow was going fast; here and there were bare patches that showed +a green shimmer across the wind. Sometimes spring comes with a rush +to New England on the 1st of April. + +That afternoon Madelon went to meeting and sang again, and when she +got home Margaret Bean was waiting for her, sitting, a motionless, +swaddled figure, beside a window. The Hautvilles never locked their +doors while away from home, and she had walked in and waited at her +ease until Madelon should return. + +Madelon came in alone; her father, Abner, and Eugene had stopped in +the barn to look after the roan, who had gone somewhat lame in one +foot, and Louis and Richard had lagged. Margaret Bean stood up when +Madelon entered. + +"You'd better come over," said she. + +"Didn't I tell your husband I couldn't?" returned Madelon, harshly. + +"You'd better, I guess." + +"I've got my father's and brothers' supper to get, and other things +to see to. Tell him he must leave me in peace to-day, or I'll never +come." Madelon's voice rose high and strident. She unfastened her +cloak as if it choked her. Margaret looked at her, her small black +eyes peering out wrathfully from her swathing woollens. She was as +much wrapped up on this mild day as she had been when the cold was +intense. A certain dogged attitude towards the weather Margaret Bean +always took. On Thanksgiving Day she donned her winter garments; on +May Day she exchanged them for her summer ones, regardless of the +temperature. She never made any compromises or concessions. She +sweltered in her full regalia of wools on mild spring days; she +weathered the early November blasts in her straw bonnet and silk +shawl, without an extra kerchief around her stiff old neck. To-day +she would not loosen her wraps as she sat waiting for Madelon in the +warm room, but remained all securely pinned and tied as when she +entered. + +However, her discomfort, although she would not yield to it, aroused +her temper. "You'd better come," said she, "or you'll be sorry." + +Madelon made no reply. + +"He's sick," said Margaret Bean; "he's took considerable worse." She +nodded her head angrily at Madelon. + +"Is his cough worse?" + +"He can scarcely sit up," said Margaret Bean, with severe emphasis. +She rose up stiffly, as if she had but one joint, so girt about was +she. "If a woman's going to marry a man, I calculate it's her place +to go to him when he's sick and wants her," she added. + +"Is his cough worse?" + +"Ain't his cough bad all the time? Well, I'm going. If folks 'ain't +got any feelings, they 'ain't. I've got to make some porridge for +him." + +Madelon opened the door for her. "I'll come over after supper," said +she; "you can tell him so." + +After supper Madelon went over to Lot's in the early twilight. The +tinkles and gurgles and plashes of water came mysteriously from all +sides through the dusk. The hill-sides were flowing with shallow +cascades, and the woods were threaded with brooks. The wind blew +strongly as ever from the south; it had lost the warmth of the sun, +but was still soft. The earth was full of a strange commotion and +stir--of disorder changing into order, as if creation had come again. +It might have been the very birthnight of the spring. Madelon, as she +hurried along, felt that memory of old, joyous anticipation which +enhances melancholy when the chance of realization is over. The +spring might come, radiant as ever, with its fulfilment of love for +flowers and birds and all living things, but the spring would never +come in its full meaning, with its old prophecies, for her again. + +Just before she reached Lot's home, Burr passed her swiftly with a +muttered "good-evening." He was on his way to Dorothy Fair's. + +"Good-evening," Madelon returned, quite clearly. + +She found Lot sitting up, but she could see that he looked worse than +usual. He was paler, and there was an odd, nervous contraction about +his whole face, as if a frown of anxiety and perplexity had extended. + +He held out his hand, but she took no notice of it. + +"I have come," said she; "what is it?" + +"Won't you shake hands, Madelon?" + +Madelon held out her hand, with her face averted, but Lot did not +take it, after all. + +"My hand is too cold," he muttered; "never mind--" He continued to +look at her, and the anxious lines on his face deepened. + +"Are you feeling worse than usual?" Madelon asked; and a little +kindness came into her voice, for Lot Gordon looked again like a sick +child who had lost his way in the world. + +Lot shook his head, with his wistful eyes still upon her face. A +little light-stand, with his medicines and a candle, stood on his +left. Presently he reached out and took a little box from off it, and +extended it to Madelon. She shrank back. + +"Take it, Madelon." + +"No, I don't want it." + +"Oh, Madelon, take it and open it at least, and let me see you." + +Madelon took the box, with an impatient gesture, and opened it, and a +ring set with a great pearl gleamed on its red velvet cushion. She +closed the box and held it out towards Lot. "I want no presents, +Lot," she said, but almost gently. + +"Oh, Madelon, keep it!" + +She reached across him, and laid the little box back on the table. + +"There's another ring I've got for you you'll have to wear, Madelon." + +"I will wear what I must, for the sake of my promise, when the time +comes, but that is all I will do," returned Madelon; and she seemed +to feel, as she spoke, the wedding-ring close around her finger like +a snake. + +"Can nothing I can give you please you, Madelon?" + +"No, Lot," she said, but not ungently. She began to move away. + +"Madelon," said Lot. + +"Well?" Madelon waited, but Lot said not another word. She went on +towards the door. + +"Madelon," he whispered, and she stopped again; but this time also +there was a long silence, which he did not break. + +Madelon opened the door, and his piteous cry came for the third time, +and she waited on the threshold; but again he said nothing more. + +"Good-night," said she, shortly, and was out, and the door shut. Then +she heard a cry from him, as if he were dying. "Madelon, Madelon!" + +She opened the door with a jerk, and went back. "Lot," said she, +sternly, "this is the last time I will come back. Once for all, what +is it you want of me?" + +Lot looked up at her, his face working. He strove to speak and could +not. He strove again, and his voice was weak and gasping as if the +breath of life had almost left him. "We--had better not be +married--to-morrow," he said, with his piteous eyes upon Madelon's +face. + +She started, and stared at him as if she feared she did not hear +rightly. + +"I--have been--thinking it over," Lot went on, panting; "I am not as +well--we had better wait--until--May. My cough--the doctor--we will +wait--Madelon!" Lot's broken speech ended in a pitiful cry of her +name. + +"Why do you do this?" she asked, looking at him with her white, stern +face, through which an expression of joy, which she tried to keep +back, was struggling. + +"I am not as well, Madelon," Lot answered, with sudden readiness and +sad dignity. "If you do not object to the change of time we had best +defer it." + +Madelon looked away. "There is no need of any pretence between us," +she said; "I am sorry you are not as well." + +"But not sorry that our wedded bliss must be deferred?" + +"No," said she. Then she went away, and that time Lot did not call +her back. She heard him coughing hard as she went through the entry. + +When she came out of the house into the tumultuous darkness of the +spring night, and went down the road with the south wind smiting her +with broadsides of soft air, and the living sounds of water ahead and +on either hand of her, she was happy--in spite of Burr, in spite of +everything--with the happiness of one to whom is granted a respite +from death. + + + + +Chapter XX + + +When the mind has been strained up and held to the furthering of some +painful end and then suddenly released, it sinks back for a time, +alive to nothing but the consciousness of freedom and rest. Even the +thought for the future, which is its one weapon against fate, is laid +down. Madelon, for a few days after the postponement of her marriage, +went about in a kind of negative happiness. There are few who have so +much to bear that there is not left to them at least the joy of +escape from another trial. Madelon had lost her lover indeed, but she +was let loose for a while from a worse trouble than that. + +When Madelon entered the house that Sunday night her face was so +changed that it held her father's and her brothers' casual glances. +Her cheeks were brilliant with the damp wind, her eyes gleaming, her +mouth half smiling as she looked around. For the first time for weeks +it seemed to Madelon that she had really come home, and the old +familiar place did not look strange to her with the threatening light +of her own future over it. She tossed off her hood and her red cloak, +and proposed with her old manner that they have some music. + +The men looked at her and each other. "She's a woman," old David +muttered under his mustache, and got his viol. + +Soon the grand chorus began, and Madelon sang and sang, with all her +old fervor. The brothers kept glancing at her, half uneasily, but +David wooed his viol as if it were his one love in the world, and +paid no attention to aught besides. + +The concert lasted late that night. It was midnight before they +stopped singing and put their stringed instruments away. + +Then Madelon turned to them all. "I am not going to be married +to-morrow," she said, and her face flushed red. "I had better tell +you. I am not going to be married for a month." She strove to +control her voice, but in spite of herself it rang exultantly at the +last. + +Louis and Richard exchanged one look with a sudden turn of white +faces. David stared hard and perplexedly at his daughter. "What's +that ye say?" he asked, after a second's pause. + +"I am not going to be married for another month." + +"Why not?" + +"Lot isn't as well as he was." + +"What's the matter? That cut he got?" + +"No, I guess not. I think it's his cough." Madelon paled and +shivered, and turned away as she spoke, for the horror of her deed +and the forced pity came over her again. + +Her father caught her by the arm as she would have gone out of the +room. + +"Look ye here," he said, "is this the whole truth of it? We've got a +right to know. Be ye going to marry him in a month's time?" + +Madelon looked at him proudly. "I am going to marry him in a month's +time, and I am not afraid to face all the truth in the world. Let me +go, father." + +When she was gone the father and sons stood staring at one another. +There was on all their faces an under meaning to which not one would +give tongue. + +Richard jostled Louis's shoulder. "Suppose--" he whispered, looking +at him with dismayed and suspicious eyes. + +"Hush up!" returned Louis, roughly, and swung across to the shelf for +his candle. + +"If I thought--" began David, with force; then stopped, shaking his +old head. The male Hautvilles went out, one after the other, their +candles flaring up in their grimly silent faces. They were capable of +concerted action without speech, and had evolved one purpose of going +to bed with no more parley about Lot Gordon and Madelon that night. +Brave as these men were, not one of them dared set foot squarely upon +the dangerous ground which two of them knew, and three suspected, and +look another in the face with the consciousness of his whereabouts in +his eyes. + +Truly afraid were they all, with that subtle cowardice which lurks +sometimes in the bravest souls, of one another's knowledge and +suspicions, as they filed up the creaking wooden stairs. + +Richard looked at Louis in a terrified sidelong way when they were +safe in their room with the door shut. "Hush up!" Louis whispered +again, roughly, as if Richard had spoken. The two brothers were not +to sleep much that night, each being tormented by anxiety lest Lot +Gordon had resolved to stand by their sister no longer, and let +disgrace fall upon her head; but neither would speak. + +The candles flashed athwart the dark window-spaces of the Hautville +chambers, and one by one went out. The house was dark and still, with +all the sweet voices and stringed instruments at rest. Yet so full of +sonorous harmony had it been not long since that one might well fancy +that it would still, to an attentive ear, reverberate with sweet +sounds in all its hollows, like a shell. + +Madelon slept soundly that night, and when she woke on the morning of +what was to have been her wedding-day felt as if she had a glimpse of +her own self again, after a long dream in which she had been changed +and lost. Richard went early to tell the woman who had been engaged +to do the housework that she need not come for a month. After +breakfast her father and brothers all went away, and she was alone in +the house. She went about her work singing for the first time for +weeks. She raised her voice high in a gay ditty which was then in +vogue, entitled "The Knight Errant": + + "It was Dennis the young and brave + Was bound for Palestine; + But first he made his orisons + Before Saint Mary's shrine. + + "'And grant, immortal Queen of Heaven,' + Was still the soldier's prayer, + 'That I may prove the bravest knight + And love the fairest fair.'" + +So sang Madelon, loud and sweet, as she tidied the kitchen. There +were four verses, and she was on the last when the door opened +stealthily and her granduncle, old Luke Basset, entered. Her back was +towards him, and she did not see or hear him. + +He waited, his old face fixed in a sly grin, standing unsteadily on +his shaking old legs, and holding to the back of a chair for support, +until Madelon sang at the close of the song, + + "And honored be the bravest brave, + Beloved the fairest fair," + +and stopped. Then he spoke. "'Tain't so, then, I s'pose," said he, +and his voice seemed to crack with sly suggestiveness. + +Madelon faced around on him. "What isn't so?" she asked, coldly. "I +didn't hear you come in." + +Old Luke Basset shuffled stiffly to the hearth and settled into +David's chair. "Well," said he, "I heerd in the store just now that +your weddin' was put off, but I s'pose it ain't so, 'cause you seem +to be in sech good sperits. A gal wouldn't be singin' if her weddin' +was put off." + +"Look here, Uncle Luke," said Madelon. + +"Well?" + +"My wedding is put off for a month; now that settles it. I don't want +to say another word about it." Madelon went into the pantry. + +Luke sent his old voice, shrill and penetrating as a baby's, after +her. "They say 'tain't luck to have a weddin' put off. 'Ain't ye +afeard he'll give ye the slip?" + +Madelon made no reply. There was a rattle of dishes in the pantry. + +Old Luke waited a moment; then raised his shrill, infantile voice +again. "If this feller gives ye the slip, ye can jest hang up yer +fiddle; ye won't git t'other one back. Parson Fair's gal's got 'nough +fine feathers comin' from Boston to fit out the Queen of England, +they say." + +Madelon said nothing. + +"D'ye hear?" called old Luke; but he got no reply. "Dexter Beers says +a hull passel of stuff come up from Boston on the stage yesterday. +Saturday," persisted old Luke, "Mis' Beers she see an eend of blue +satin a-stickin' out of one of the bundles." + +Old Luke waited again, with sharp eyes on the pantry. He could see +therein a fold of Madelon's indigo-blue petticoat, and could hear the +click of a spoon against a dish; that was all. + +Old Luke tried his last prod of aggravation. "Folks air sayin' down +to the store that mebbe there was some truth, arter all, in what you +said 'bout the stabbin', an' mebbe that's the reason Lot is a puttin' +off the weddin'," piped old Luke. He chuckled slyly to himself, but +sobered suddenly, and cowered in his chair before Madelon. + +She came out of the pantry with a rush, and stood before him, her +eyes blazing. "There _was_ truth in what I said, after all!" she +cried. "The truth's the truth, whether there's folks to believe it or +not, and I spoke it, and you can tell them so at the store." + +Old Luke shrank before her. His old body seemed to cease to shape his +clothes. He looked up at her with scared eyes. + +"And the reason I have told for the wedding being postponed is the +truth, too," continued Madelon. "I did stab Lot Gordon, and he knows +I did, though he won't own it, and he's bound to stab me back my +whole life. And we shall be married in a month fast enough--you +needn't worry, Uncle Luke Basset." + +Madelon stood over the old man a minute, quivering with impatience +and utterly reckless anger and scorn, and he shrank before her with +scared eyes, and yet a lurking of his malicious grin about his mouth. +Then she made a contemptuous gesture, as if she would brush him out +of her consciousness altogether, and went away out of the room +without another word, and left him alone. + +He turned his head slowly and looked cautiously around after the door +was closed. He heard Madelon's quick tread up the stairs. "Gorry!" +muttered old Luke under his breath, and scowled reflectively over his +foxy eyes. Quite convinced in his own mind was old Luke Basset that +his grandniece had spoken the truth, and had wounded Lot Gordon +almost to death, and quite resolute was he also that he would, since +she was his own kin, contend against the carping tongues of the +village gossips with all the cunning in him. + +Old Luke waited for some time. Then he got up stiffly and shuffled +out on his tottering legs, scraping his feet for purchase on the +floor, like some old claw-footed animal. + +Out in the entry he paused a moment, with his head cocked shrewdly +and warily towards the stairs. "Hey!" he called, but got no response. +He opened the outer door, and, all ready to be gone should his niece +appear, he called shrilly up the stairs, "Hey, Mad'lon--forgot to +tell ye. Mis' Beers she said she see a bandbox 'mongst them things +that come for the parson's gal; said 'twas most big 'nough to hold +the bride, and she guessed 'twas the weddin'-bunnit." + +Not a sound from above heard old Luke, and presently he gave it up +and went out and down the road to the village, with occasional +glances of a crafty old eye over his shoulder at Madelon's chamber +window. Madelon had heard every word. She was folding up her own +wedding-silk and putting it away in the cedar chest until she should +want it. She put away her wedding-bonnet also, with its cream-colored +plumes and its linings and strings of yellow satin, in the bandbox. + +She set her mouth hard, and coupled bitterly her own poor +wedding-finery with Dorothy Fair's grand outfit; and yet not for the +reason that her Uncle Luke had striven to give her, for she would +have held an old ragged blanket of one of her Indian grandmothers +like the bridal gown of a queen had Burr been her bridegroom. + +Madelon heard the door shut, and knew her tormentor was gone; and +after her fine attire was packed away she went down-stairs and about +her tasks again. But she sang no more. The certainty of the future +overcame her like the present, and her short-lived joy or respite was +all gone. When her father and brothers came home at noon they found +the old stern quiet in her face, and their suspicions that there had +been a rupture with Lot ceased. They were relieved, but the boy +Richard eyed her with furtive pity. That night he lingered behind the +others when they dispersed for the night, and went up to Madelon and +threw an arm around her, and laid his cheek against hers. "Oh, +Madelon, I wish--" he began, and then he caught his breath, and his +cheek against hers was wet, and Madelon turned and comforted him, as +a woman will turn and comfort a man for even his pity for her sorrow. + +"There is no need for you to fret," she said, with a sort of gentle +authority, as if she had been his mother. "I've got my life to live, +and I've got strength enough to live it. I shall do well enough." + +Then she put him away from her softly, and went about setting bread +to rise. But he followed beseechingly at her heels, with a little +parcel which he had been hiding in a corner of the dresser. "I bought +these for you, with some of my trap money, for a little present," the +boy whispered, piteously; and Madelon smiled at him and took the +parcel and opened it, and found therein a pair of fine red-satin +shoes. Then he brightened at the delight which she showed, and went +up-stairs to bed, feeling that after all it would be no such hard +task for his sister to marry Lot Gordon, and cover her fault of mad +temper and her disgrace. "He likes her so much he will treat her +kindly, and she will have a fine house, and plenty of silk gowns, and +feathers in her bonnets," reflected Richard, comfortably, with no +more consciousness of his sister's outlook upon life than if his eyes +were turned towards a scene in another world. Still he loved his +sister with all his heart, although he never in his life had seen +anything just as she saw it. He did not dream that Madelon's calm +broke before his red-satin shoes, and that she was sitting alone +before the kitchen fire with them in her lap, weeping bitterly. She +was made of stern stuff to endure the worst of things; but, after +all, the pitiful little accessories of grief and death are harder to +bear without weakening, because all one's powers of defence are not +enlisted against them. They are sometimes the scouts that kill. + +Poor Madelon looked at her brother's wedding-gift, the little +red-satin shoes, in which she could never walk or dance with a merry +heart, and her courage almost failed her. But it was only for a +little while. She rose up and finished setting the bread to rise, and +then she went to her chamber and packed away the shoes with the other +things in the cedar chest. + +Through the days that came now Madelon toiled as she had never toiled +before, although she had always been an industrious girl. She had her +own linen-chest, which she would take with her when she married, and +now she bestirred herself to replenish the stores of the house she +would leave, for the comfort of her father and brothers. Long before +dawn the gentle hum of her spinning-wheel began, although the days +were lengthening, and many a time she sat plying it on her solitary +hearth until after midnight. She spent days at the great loom in the +north chamber, marching back and forth before it, a straight, +resolute figure of industry filling human needs, although with sweat +of the brow and heart's blood. No happier was she for her hard toil, +but it kept at least the spirit of fierce endurance alive within her, +for no one succumbs entirely to misery with unfolded hands. Then, +too, she was upheld somewhat by her pride in right-doing and +providing for the interests of her family. Enough of the New England +conscience she had to give her a certain comfort in holding herself +to duty, like a knife to a grindstone. + +The third week of April had begun when one morning Dorothy Fair came +to the door. Madelon was out in the field beside the house, laying +some lengths of cloth on the green sunny levels to whiten. The grass +had turned quite green in places, and the sun was hot as midsummer. +The buds on the trees opened before one's eyes, as if unfolded by +warm fingers. People walked languidly, for the humid heat served to +force nothing to life in them but dreams; but the birds lived on +their wings and called out of all the distances. + +Madelon, standing up from spreading her linen, caught sight of the +swing of a blue petticoat, like the swing of a blue flower, beside +the house door, and went towards it directly. + +But when she reached the house the blue-clad visitor had disappeared +within. Madelon entered and found Dorothy Fair in the north parlor. +Eugene had been sitting in there with his Shakespeare book, and he +had opened the door, bowing and wishing her good-day, with his +courtly grace of manner, although his handsome face was pale. + +Dorothy was pale, also, under her blue-ribboned bonnet. She +courtesied on trembling knees, and spoke like a scared child, in +spite of her training and genteel deportment. "Can I see your +sister?" she said, in a half-whisper, and she did not raise her blue +eyes to Eugene's face. + +Eugene looked past her. "I see her coming now across the field," he +said; "she has seen you and will be here presently." + +Then he bade her enter, and made way for her, like a courtier for a +princess, and seated her in the north parlor in the best +rocking-chair, as if it were a throne. Then he sat down opposite her, +with his Shakespeare book still on his knees. That morning he had +been poring over "Romeo and Juliet." His imagination was afire with +the sweet ardor of that other lover, and he would gladly have +identified Dorothy, as she sat there, with Juliet; and so he adored +her doubly. + +Yet he saw only the tip of her little shoe below the blue hem of her +gown, and dared not fairly glance at her face, although he bore +himself with such calm ease that none could have suspected. + +"It is a beautiful day," said Eugene. + +"Yes," whispered Dorothy. Somehow for the moment Eugene forgot +Dorothy's marriage, and Burr and his bitter jealousy, for suddenly a +strange and unwarrantable sense of possession came over him. He +looked fully at Dorothy, and scanned her drooping face, and smiled, +and then Madelon came in. + +Dorothy arose at once and greeted her with more of her usual manner. +Then she fumbled uneasily with a little parcel she held, and glanced +at Eugene, and then at Madelon. "I had an errand--" began Dorothy and +stopped, and then Eugene said softly, still smiling, "I see you have +some weighty matter to discuss," and bowed himself out with his +Shakespeare book. + +Then Dorothy, all trembling, and before he was fairly out of hearing +across the entry in the other room, announced her errand. She had +come to beg Madelon, whose rare skill in embroidering her own floral +designs was celebrated in the village, to work for her the front +breadth of one of her silken gowns with a garland of red roses. "I +can work only from patterns which are marked out," said Dorothy; and +then she held up a shining length of green silk upon which the +garland already bloomed in her pretty feminine fancy. "I will pay you +whatever you ask," said Dorothy, further. Then she started and +shrank, for Madelon looked at her with such wrath and pride in her +black eyes that she was frightened. + +"What--have--I--done?" she faltered, piteously. And it was quite true +that she did not know what she had done, for she reasoned always like +a child, with premises of acts only and not of motives. She +considered simply that Madelon had urged her to be true to Burr, and +was herself to marry another man, and therefore could not be jealous, +and that she wanted her gown embroidered. + +Dorothy was not happy, and a nervous terror was always upon her which +had caused her blue eyes to look out wistfully from delicate hollows +and faded the soft pink on her cheeks; still she kept involuntarily +to her feminine ways, and wanted her gowns embroidered. + +"I want no pay!" Madelon cried, hoarsely. + +"I meant no harm," Dorothy faltered, again. She remembered that +Madelon Hautville had on divers occasions, for prospective brides, +turned her marvellous skill in embroidery to financial profit, but +she dared not say so for an excuse. "I could not do it myself," +Dorothy said, further, trembling in every limb, "and--I thought +maybe--you--" + +Suddenly Madelon extended her hand. "Give me this silk," she said; "I +will work the flowers on it for you, but never dare to speak to me of +pay, Dorothy Fair." + +Dorothy looked at her, made a motion as to give her the silk, then +drew it back again. + +"Give me the silk," said Madelon. Dorothy yielded up the silk +hesitatingly, with a scared and apologetic murmur. Then she screamed +faintly, for Eugene Hautville strode back into the room with a look +on his face which she had never seen before. He snatched the silk out +of Madelon's hand and thrust it roughly into Dorothy's. + +"Take it home," he said. "My sister does no work on your +wedding-clothes!" + +Dorothy gasped and looked at him with wild terror in her blue eyes, +and then he caught her in his arms, pressed her yellow head against +his breast, and stroked it softly. "Don't be afraid," he said--and +his voice had its wonderful gentle charm again. "Don't be afraid, +dear child! I could not harm you if I tried--not a hard word shall be +said to you, sweet!" + +"_Eugene!_" cried Madelon, and her voice seemed to carry wrath like a +trumpet. She laid hold of his shoulders, and forced him back, and +Dorothy slipped out of his arms and stood aside, trembling and +weeping, with a little worked apron which she wore thrown over her +face. "Let me be!" Eugene cried, angrily, and would have gone to +Dorothy again to comfort her, but Madelon in her wrath was as strong +as he, and she thrust herself between them. + +"You are no brother of mine, Eugene Hautville," she said, her face +all white and fierce with anger. "You dare to touch her again, and +you will find out that I can fight to keep her from you as well as +Burr could if he were here. You _dare_ to touch her again!" Then she +turned to Dorothy. "Give me the silk," she said, in a hard voice. In +her heart she blamed her more than her brother, although +unnecessarily. + +Dorothy shrank back. "No," she said, feebly, "I had better not." + +"Give me the silk!" + +Dorothy gave her the silk. Eugene stood apart. He possessed his fine +pride and graceful self-poise again, and though his blood boiled he +would not, being a man, wrestle with his sister for another man's +bride. + +Dorothy moved towards the door, her fair curls drooping over her +agitated face. Eugene made a motion in her direction, and when +Madelon would have thrust him back again, he only said, with a +half-smile, "I would crave the lady's pardon; you would not prevent +that." And then he bowed low before Dorothy Fair, and besought her +to pardon, if she could, his unseemly conduct, and believe that it +had for motive only the highest respect and esteem for her. + +And Dorothy swept her curls farther over her face, and could not make +the dignified response of offended maidenhood that she should, but +courtesied tremblingly and fairly fled out of the house. + +Eugene, with his Shakespeare book under his arm, went also out of the +house and over across the field, to a piney wood he loved, where all +the trees, even in this warm flush of spring, whispered eternally of +winter and the north, and there he stretched himself out beneath a +tree, as melancholy as Jacques in the forest of Arden. Now that he +had got the better of his impulse of mad passion and jealousy, he was +ashamed, and stayed late in the wood, for he did not like to meet his +sister's rightly scornful face. + +When he went at last late for his supper, Madelon, as he expected, +noticed him only by an angry flash of her black eyes, under drooping +lids. She said not one word to him, and as the days went on treated +him coldly; and yet she did not give to the matter its full +seriousness of meaning. + +Madelon, well acquainted with Eugene's caressing manner, thought +simply that, seeing poor Dorothy's alarm, he had striven to soothe +her with endearments and assurance that he would not hurt her, as he +would have done with a child. As for Dorothy, Madelon credited her +with the soft spirit which she knew she possessed. She scorned them +both, and felt as jealous for Burr's sake as he himself could have +done, that other hands than his had touched his bride's; and yet she +did not dream of the full significance of it all. + +She wrought a marvellous garland of red roses on Dorothy Fair's green +silk, and scarcely left herself time to sleep that she might complete +that and her stint of household linen. She had nothing to add to her +own wedding-garments. + + + + +Chapter XXI + + +The weeks went past, and the Sunday before the day set for her +wedding came again. She had seen Lot but three times in the interval. +He had sent for her, and she had gone obediently, and remained a +short time, pleading her work as an excuse to return home. Lot had +not sought to detain her; he had vexed her with no vain appeals, but +treated her with a sort of sad deference which would have perplexed +her had she cared enough for him to dwell upon it. + +Lot was said to be in no better health. He did not stir abroad on +those warm spring days. Once he had put on his great-coat, and was +for setting foot on the springing grass in the sunny yard, but +Margaret Bean had remarked to him how she had heard, whilst +purchasing a bit of cheese in the store, a man say that he guessed +Lot Gordon wasn't much worse, only afraid of a wife that could use a +knife. Margaret Bean had shaken in her starched petticoats as she +said it, not knowing how the news might affect her master towards the +monger of it; but she was disposed to risk a little rather than have +a mistress over her. + +Lot said nothing in response about the matter, but pulled off his +great-coat and sank into his chair with a fit of coughing, and +declared he felt not well enough to go out that day. + +That last Sunday Madelon went to him without being summoned, in the +early evening after supper. On her last visit, the week before, he +had asked her, and she had promised to come. + +The frogs were calling across the meadows as she went along; there +was a young moon shining with frequent silvery glances through the +budding trees, which tossed athwart it like foam, and the mists +curled along the horizon distances. Madelon, moving along, was as the +ghost of one who had belonged to the spring, as a part of its radiant +hope and stir of life and youth in days past, but was now done with +it forever. The spring sounds and sights, and all its sweet +influence, seemed to tear her heart anew with memories of the visions +of fair futures which she had forfeited. The loss of the sweet dreams +which the spring awakens in the human heart is not one of the least +losses of life. Though the spring be unfulfilled, it sweetens the +year. + +Just before Madelon reached Lot Gordon's house, she met Burr going to +court Dorothy. They were to be married in two weeks more. Madelon and +Burr exchanged a murmur of salutations and passed each other. + +Madelon went directly into Lot's house, to his sitting-room, as she +was used to do lately, and found Lot standing in the midst of the +room, waiting for her, with a lighted candle in his hand. + +"I heard your footstep when you came through that open space, where +the road has a hollow echo," he said; "and I have been waiting for +you ever since." + +"You could not hear me; it is a half-mile away," said Madelon. + +"A half-mile! what's a hundred miles when 'tis the heart that +listens, and not the ears? Come; I have something I want to show +you." + +Lot led the way and Madelon followed out of the room across the front +entry, with its spiral of stair mounting its landscape-papered +height, and Lot opened the door of the opposite room, the great north +parlor. "Wait here a minute," he said to Madelon, and she waited in +the entry after he entered until he called her to follow. + +Lot had lighted every candle in the great branching candelabra upon +the shelf, and the room was full of light. Madelon looked about her, +and even her despairing calm was stirred a little. Never had she seen +or dreamed of a room like this. She grasped no details; her +bewildered eyes saw them all melting into each other, combining newly +and vanishing like kaleidoscopic pictures--folds and gleaming +stretches of crimson damask and velvet, the dark polish of precious +woods, spots and arabesques of gold and the satin shimmer of +wall-paper, lights and shades of steel engravings, and elegant and +graceful lady-treasures of gilded books and work-boxes and vases on +shelf and tables. There was even a little piano, the only one in the +village, with slender, fluted legs, and a mother-of-pearl garland +over the key-board. + +"I have had this all newly furnished for you. I hope it may please +you," said Lot; and he looked at Madelon with hollow, wistful eyes. + +That brought her to herself. "It is very pretty," she replied, and +turned away. + +Lot sighed. "Well, I have something more to show you," said he, and +went forlornly before her, stooping weakly and coughing now and then, +into the great middle room of the house, which was fitted up with +carven oak which Governor Winthrop might have used. Here, too, Lot +lighted all the branches of the candelabra on the shelf; and the +great buffet directly responded with the dazzling white glitter of +silver from the cream-jugs and ewers and spoons thereon. + +Then Lot threw open the fine carved doors of the cupboard, and the +shelves were covered with precious blue china, brought from over +seas, and wine-glasses like bubbles of crystal, and decanters as +graceful as plumes. + +"Do you like it, Madelon?" Lot asked; and Madelon replied, as before, +that it was pretty. + +Lot showed Madelon all the wealth of his house before they returned +to the sitting-room. Much had been there from his father's day, but +much had been added to please this bride, who looked at it more +coldly and with less part in it than she would have looked at the +treasures in a merchant's windows. She saw, unmoved by any pride of +possession, great canopied bedsteads, and chests of drawers whose +carven tops reached the ceiling, and mirrors in gilded frames. She +saw marvellous stores of linen damask napery in such delicate and +graceful designs, from foreign looms, as she had never dreamed. She +saw an India shawl, and lengths of silk and satin and velvet, and +turned away from it all to the obstinate contemplation and endurance +of her own misery. + +At last Lot led the way back to the sitting-room. He set the candle +on the shelf, and gave a strange, beseeching glance around the room +at his books. It was as if he besought, with the irrationality of +grief, those only friends he fairly knew for help and sympathy. + +Then he turned to Madelon and laid a hand on each of her shoulders, +and looked at her. "No, there is no need now," he said, when she +would have shrunk away from him; and something in his voice hushed +her, and she stood still. + +"Madelon," said Lot Gordon, "tell me true, as before God. You are a +woman, and always, I have heard, a woman takes comfort and pleasure +in life with such gear as I have shown you, alone, even if she has +little else. Would not all this give you some little happiness, even +as my wife, Madelon?" + +Madelon looked at Lot and hesitated. She had a feeling that her word +of reply would stab him more cruelly than her knife had done. + +"Madelon, tell me!" + +"Will you have the truth?" + +Lot nodded. + +"No, Lot." + +"Madelon, I can buy you more than all this. Are you sure?" + +"Yes." + +Lot gave a great sigh. "Dearly bought possessions are worse than +poverty, you hold," said he. "Then, Madelon, there is no sweetening +in all this for your bondage?" + +She shook her head. "I shall do my duty, as I have promised," she +said. "All this is useless. Let me go, Lot." + +"Madelon!" + +She looked up in his face, and a strange awe came over her at the +look in it. A more secret lurking-place than any of the little wild +things that he loved to discover had the self in Lot Gordon, and +Madelon saw it for the first time, and perhaps he, also. + +"True love exists not unless it can do away with the desire of +possession. I love you, Madelon," said Lot; and then he let go of her +shoulders and went over to the mantel-shelf, and leaned against it, +with his head bent. + +Madelon, all bewildered and trembling, stared at him. + +"I--don't think I know what you mean," she gasped out, finally. + +"You are--free," said Lot. + + + + +Chapter XXII + + +That year, spring seemed to break over the village in a day, like a +green flood. All at once people's thoughts were interrupted, and +their eyes turned from selfish joys or pains by the emerald flash of +fields and hill-sides in the morning sun, and the white flutter of +flowering boughs past their windows like the festal garments of +unexpected guests. + +The first week in May, the cherry-trees were in blossom, and the +alders and shad bushes were white in the borders of the woods against +the filmy green of the birches. The young women got out their summer +muslins, and trimmed their bonnets anew; their faces, all unknown to +themselves, took on a new meaning of the spring, like new flowers, +and the young men looked after them as they passed as if they were +strangers in the village. + +On the afternoon of Wednesday, in the first week of May, Eugene +Hautville strolled across-lots over to the village. Through the +fields north of the Hautville place there was an old foot-path to the +former site of an old homestead, long ago burned to the ground and +its ashes dissipated on winds long died away. The oldest inhabitants +in the village barely remembered the house that used to stand there. +The slant of its roof crossed their minds dimly when they spoke of +it: they could not agree as to whether it had faced north or south. +It might have seemed almost fabulous, had it not been for the thicket +of old lilacs purpling with bloom every spring, which had first grown +before its windows, and the perennial houseleek which had clustered +round the door. + +Then, too, east of where the house had stood there was an old apple +orchard, the trees thereof bent to the ground like distorted old men, +and, when spring came, bearing scarcely one bough of pink bloom, +among others shaggy with gray moss like the beard of age. + +Then, also, the lane still remained which had stretched, in days gone +by, from the northward of the old house to the highway. The lane had +divided the fields of the old landowners, and had been the +thoroughfare for the dwellers in the house when they went to meeting +and to mill. + +The Hautvilles often used it in the summer-time for a short-cut to +the village. Eugene went along this foot-path, which was in its way a +little humble track of history of simple village life, passed the +site of the house, and then struck into the lane. It stretched before +him like a shaft of green light. The afternoon sun shone through +young willow-leaves, transparent like green glass. Low overhead hung +rosy tassels from out-reaching boughs of maples. Between the trees, +the flowering alders seemed gleaming out of sight before him like the +white skirts of maidens. Here and there the ground was blue with +violets. Eugene picked some half mechanically, as he went along, and +made a little nosegay, with some sprigs of alder. He was half through +the lane, and had just emerged from a clump of alders, when he saw +Dorothy Fair coming. She gave a start when she saw him appear with a +great jostling of white branches, and made as if she would have fled; +then she held up her head with gentle dignity and advanced, lifting +her lady-skirts with dainty fingers on either side. Mistress Dorothy, +being weary of fine needle-work upon her bridal linen, had come out a +little way to take the air, and naturally enough had chosen for her +walk this sweet lane, which opened upon the highway a stone's-throw +below her house. + +If Eugene Hautville, at sight of her, felt a quaking of his spirit, +and would also fain have fled, he made no sign, but walked on proudly +like a prince, with a bold yet graceful swing of his stalwart +shoulders. And when he and Dorothy met, he bowed low before her, and +she courtesied and he bade her good-day quite clearly, and she +murmured a response with pretty, prim lips; and they would have +passed on had not both, as if constrained by hands of force upon +their necks, raised their faces and looked of a sudden into each +other eyes with that same old look which they had exchanged in the +meeting-house long ago. + +Dorothy Fair wore on that day a thin wool gown of a mottled blue +color like a dapple of spring violets. It was laid across her bosom +in smooth plaits, and showed at the throat her finely wrought lace +kerchief. The sun was so warm that she had put on her white straw hat +with blue ribbons, and her soft curls flowed from under it to her +blue belt ribbon. She wore, too, her little black-silk apron, +cunningly worked in the corners with flowers in colored silks. +Dorothy looked up in Eugene Hautville's face, and he looked down at +her, for a force against which they had come into the world unarmed +constrained them. Then she bent her head before him until he could +see nothing but the white slant of her hat, and caught at her silk +apron as if she would hide her face with that also. + +Eugene stood still looking at her, his face radiant and glowing red. +"Dorothy!" he stammered, and then Dorothy straightened herself +suddenly, though she kept her face averted, flung up her head, caught +up her blue skirts again, and made as if she would pass on without +another word. Eugene, with his face all at once white, and his head +proudly raise, stood aside to let her pass. "'Tis a warm day for the +season," he said, with his old graceful courtesy. But Dorothy looked +up at him again as she neared him in passing, and her sweet mouth was +quivering like a frightened baby's, and the tears were in her blue +eyes, and no man who loved her could have let her go by; and +certainly not this fiery young Eugene. Suddenly, and with seemingly +no more involvement of wills or ethics than the alders in their +blossoming, the two were in each other's arms, and their lips were +meeting in kisses. + +This fair and demure daughter of Puritans might well, as she stood +there in her lover's embrace, being already, as she was, the +betrothed bride of another, have been accounted fickle and false, but +perhaps in a sense she was not. Never had she forgot or been untrue +to her first love-dreams, which Eugene had caused, but had held to +them with that mild negative obstinacy of her nature which she could +not herself overcome. Now it was to her as if she were reconciled to +her true lover, and was faithful instead of false; and less false she +surely was to her own self. + +Right contentedly had she loved for a time Burr's love for her and +his tenderness, and had been stirred thereby to passion, but now she +loved this other man for something better than her own sweet image in +his eyes. + +Never a word she said, but her hat slipped down on her shoulders, +hanging by its blue strings, and she let her head lie on Eugene's +shoulder, with a strange sense of wontedness and of remembering +something which had never been. + +And, also, all Eugene's fond words in her ear seemed to her like the +strains of old songs which were past her memory. Burr's, although she +had listened happily, had never seemed to her like that. + +They stood together so for a few minutes, while the alder-flowers +shook out sweetness, as from perfumed garments, at their side, and a +bee who had left his hive and winter honey, and made that day another +surprise of spring, hummed from one white raceme to another and then +was away, disappearing in the blue air with a last gleam of filmy +wing as behind a sapphire wall. + +Neither of the lovers had knowingly heard the bee's hum, but when it +ceased the silence seemed to make an accusing sense audible to them. +They let each other go and stood apart guiltily, as if some one had +entered the lane and was spying upon them. + +Dorothy spoke first, without raising her pale little face, all +drooped round with her curls. "What shall I do?" she said, like a +child. She was trembling, and could scarcely control her tongue. + +Eugene made no reply. He stood looking moodily at the ground, where +his nosegay of violets and alders was all scattered and trampled. + +Suddenly he had the feeling as of a thief in another man's garden, +and a shame before Dorothy herself came over him. Eugene Hautville's +principles of honor, in spite of his fiery nature, read like a +primer, with no subtleties of evasion therein. Here was another man's +betrothed, and he had wooed her away! He had kissed her lips, which +were vowed to another. He had wronged her and Burr Gordon also. +Strangely enough, Dorothy's own responsibility never occurred to him +at all; he never dreamed of blaming her for falsity either to himself +or Burr. That little fair trembling creature, clad like a violet in +her mottled blue, seemed to him at once above and below all questions +of personal agency. She bloomed like a flower in her garden, +infinitely finer than those who wrangled around her and strove to +gather her, and yet in a measure helpless before them. + +In a moment Dorothy answered her question negatively herself: "I will +not marry Burr," she said, without raising her head, and yet with +that tone of voice which accompanies a lift of chin and stiffening of +the neck muscles. + +Eugene looked at her, and extended his arms as if he would take her +to him again; then drew them back. "I do not know what to counsel +you," he said, slowly. Then his eyes fell before the sudden shame and +distress in Dorothy's. + +"You do not know what do counsel me!" she cried. "Then you do +not--care--" Tears rolled over her cheeks, and Eugene gathered her +into his arms again, and laid his cheek against her fair head, and +soothed her as he would have soothed a child. "There, there," he +whispered, "it is not that, it is not that, sweet. I would die for +you, I love you so! It is not that, but you are the promised wife of +another man. How can I turn a thief even for you, Dorothy? How can I +bid you be false, and forswear yourself? There's honor as well as +love, child." + +"But love is honor," said Dorothy. + +"Not for a man," said Eugene. + +Then she clung to him softly and modestly, and sobbed, and he kissed +her hair and whispered in one breath that she was all his own, and in +another that he knew not what to do, and was near distracted between +his love and his sense of honor, until Dorothy said something which +set him pleading for his rival whether he would or no, for the sake +of stern justice. + +"I am afraid of him, I am afraid of Burr," Dorothy whispered in his +ear. "How could I have married him, when I was so afraid, even if you +had not come?" + +"Afraid?" + +"_You--know--what--they said--Burr did!_" + +Eugene held her away from him by her slender arms, and looked at her. +"You did not believe that?" + +"He would not tell me he was innocent, even when I begged him so." + +"You knew he was." + +"Why did he not tell me, when I begged him so?" she said, and the +soft unyielding in her tone was absolute. + +"Dorothy!" + +"I am so afraid--you don't know," she whispered, piteously. + +"But--you know Burr was cleared." + +"Yes, I know, but even now he will not tell me on the Bible, as I +asked him, that he is innocent." + +"Dorothy, he _is_ innocent," Eugene said, with solemn and bitter +emphasis of which she knew not the full meaning. + +"Then why does he not swear that he is, to me?" Back went Dorothy +always, in all reasoning, to the starting-point in her own mind. + +"I tell you he is, child. It has been proven so." + +"Then why--" Dorothy began, but Eugene interrupted her in her circle. +"There is no more cause for you to fear him than me," he said almost +harshly, in his stern resolve to be just. Then Dorothy turned on him +with sudden passion. "I am afraid," she cried out, "I shall always be +afraid; even if he were to swear to me now that he is innocent, I +shall always be afraid, for I coupled him with that awful deed once +in my thoughts, and I cannot separate him from it forever. He will +always hold the knife in his hand; even if it were not for you, I +should be near mad with fear. I bid black Phyllis stay by the door +when he comes." + +"Dorothy!" + +"Yes, I do. What my mind has once laid hold of, that it will not let +go. I cannot separate him from my old thought of him. I have tried to +be faithful, and true, but even had he sworn to me that he was +innocent, the fear would have remained. Save me from him--oh, Eugene, +save me!" + +But Eugene put her quite away from him, and looked at her almost +sternly. His honor held the reins now in good earnest. The suspicion +of Madelon, which he had never owned to himself, became a certainty. +He defended his rival as strenuously as he would have defended +himself, since it involved truth to himself. "I swear to you, Dorothy +Fair," he said, "that Burr Gordon is innocent, and that your fear of +him is groundless." + +Dorothy looked at him with dilated eyes. She said not a word, but her +mind travelled its circle again. + +"It is so," said Eugene; "I know it." + +Still Dorothy looked at him. + +"All my heart is yours," Eugene went on, "but I would rather it +broke, and yours too, before I counselled you to be false to a man +for a reason like that." + +A flush came over Dorothy's face. She pulled her straw hat from her +shoulders to her head, and tied the blue strings under her chin. She +gathered up daintily a fold of her blue mottled skirt on either side. +"Then I will marry Burr this day week," she said. "I will endeavor to +be a good and true wife to him, and I pray you to forget if you can +what has passed between us to-day." + +She said this as calmly and authoritatively as her father could have +said it in the pulpit, and courtesied slightly, then went on down the +lane and out into the open beyond, with a soft tilt of her blue +skirts and as gently proud a carriage as when she walked into the +meeting-house of a Sabbath. + +Eugene said not a word to stop her, but stood staring after her. All +his study of his Shakespeare helped him not to an understanding of +this one girl, whom he saw with love-dimmed eyes. This sudden +abetting on her part of his resolve gave him a sense of earthquake +and revolution, yet he did not call her back or follow her. + +He proceeded through the lane to the highway, then a few yards +farther to the store, to get his Boston weekly paper. The mail had +come in. On this warm spring day the loafers on the boxes and barrels +within the store had crawled out to the bench on the piazza and sat +there in a row. All mental states have their illustrative lives of +body. This shabby row leaned and lopped and settled upon themselves, +into all the lines and curves and downward slants of laziness, and +with rank tobacco-smoke curling about them, like the very languid +breath of it. However, when Eugene Hautville drew near, there was a +slight shuffling stir; a drawling hum of conversation ceased, and +when he entered the store their eyes followed him, bright with +furtive attention. The mill of gossip had ground slowly in this heavy +spring atmosphere, but it had ground steadily. They had been +discussing Madelon Hautville and the breaking off of her marriage +with Lot Gordon. It was village property by this time, and all +tongues were exercised over it. + +"Why ain't Lot Gordon goin' to marry her?" they asked each other, and +exchanged answering looks of dark suspicion. The reason for not +marrying which Lot used every means in his power to promulgate--his +fast-failing health--gained little credence. The story came directly +from the doctor's wife that Lot Gordon was no worse than he had been +for the last ten years, and was likely to live ten years to come. +Margaret Bean was said to have told a neighboring woman, who told +another, who in her turn told another, and so started an endless +chain of good authority, that Lot Gordon had never coughed so little +as he did this spring, and "ate like a pig." He was, it is true, +never seen on the highway, but there were those who said he was +abroad again in his old woodland haunts. + +"Guess he didn't change his mind about havin' Mad'lon Hautville +'cause he was so much worse than common," they said; "guess when the +time drawed near he was afraid." Margaret Bean was, furthermore, on +good authority reported to have intimated that never, if Madelon had +come to that house while she was in it, would she and her husband +have gone to bed without the scissors in the latch of their bedroom +door. + +Lot Gordon, who had forsworn himself to save Madelon, was now, by his +last sacrifice for her, bidding fair to prove what her own assertions +had failed to do--her guilt. He crept out secretly into cover of the +woods, now and then, on a mild day; he could not deny himself that. +But otherwise he stayed close, and coughed hard when there were +listening ears, and complained like any old woman of his increasing +aches and pains. Still his cunning availed little, although he did +not dream of it. + +He went not among the gossips himself, and no one as yet had ventured +to approach him with the rumor that was fast gaining ground. + +No one had ventured to broach the matter to the Hautville men, for +obvious reasons. "I wouldn't vally your skin if that fellar overheard +what you was sayin' of when he come up the road, Joe Simpson," one +loafer drawled to another, when Eugene left the store that afternoon +and had disappeared going the long way home. + +"Hush up, will ye!" whispered the other, glancing around pale under +his unshaven beard as if he feared Eugene might yet be there. The +Hautville men, however, hearing nothing, and saying nothing about the +matter to each other, had always, among themselves, a subtle exchange +of uneasy thought concerning it. If one sat moodily by and moved out +of her way without a word while Madelon prepared a meal, the others +knew what it meant. They also knew well the meaning of each other's +glances at her, and sudden lowering of brows. Madelon herself did not +know. When she had come home that Sunday night, and announced that +she was not going to be married at all, she had not understood the +sharp questioning, and then the stern quiet that followed upon it. +She had told them simply that Lot said that his lungs were gone; that +he had ascertained the fact himself through his own knowledge of +medicine; that he could only live a wreck of a man, if at all, and, +knowing it was so, had made up his mind that he would not marry. + +Lot had indeed told her so, and had made her believe it, doing away +with much of the force of his giving her up for the sake of his love. +It is difficult in any case for one to understand fully the love to +which he cannot respond, for involuntarily the heart averts itself +from it like an ear or an eye, and misses it like the highest notes +of music and colors of the spectrum. + +Madelon had stared dumbly at Lot when he told her she was free, and +for a moment indeed had struggled with a consciousness which would +have stirred her at least into pity and gratitude and remorse, which +she had never known, had not Lot recovered himself and spoken again +in his old manner. He tapped himself on his hollow chest. "After +all," he said, "'tis best you are not seduced like most of your sex +into making the accessories of life supply the lack of the primal +needs of it, into taking sugar instead of bread, and weakening your +stomach and your understanding. 'Tis best for you and best for me, +and best for those that might come after us. Treasure of house and +land and fine apparel and furnishings may be a goodly inheritance, +but our heirs would thank us more for power to draw the breath of +life freely, and you would do better without a gown to your back, or +a shoe to your foot, and a mate that was not half a dead man; and I +should do better alone in my anteroom of the tomb than with another +life to disturb the peace of it, and rouse me to efforts which will +send me farther on." + +Madelon had stared at him, not knowing what to say, with compassion, +and yet with growing conviction of his selfish ends, which disturbed +it. + +Lot tapped his chest again. "My lungs are gone," he said, shortly; "I +need no doctor to tell me. I know enough of physics myself to send +the whole village stumbling, instead of racing, into their graves, if +I choose to use it. My lungs are gone, and you are well quit of me, +and I of a foolish undertaking, though of a charming bride. Now, go +your way, child, and take up your maiden dreams again, for all me." + +Madelon looked at him proudly, although she was half dazed by what +she heard. "I care nothing for all the fine things you have shown +me," said she, "and I have told you truly always that I do not care +for you, but I will keep my promise to marry you unless you yourself +bid me to break it." + +"I bid you to break it," said Lot, steadily, and his eyes met hers, +and his old mocking smile played over his white face. Then suddenly +he bent over with his racking cough, and Madelon made a step towards +him, but he motioned her away. "Good-night--child," he gasped out. + +Then Madelon had gone home and told her father and brothers, and +thought their strange reception of the news due to anything but the +truth. She had told them that she was guilty of wounding Lot Gordon +almost to death. That they should now be rendered uneasy by +suspicions, when she had given them actual knowledge, was something +beyond her imagination. She fancied rather that they considered Lot +had treated her badly, or else that she had a longing love for Burr, +and, perhaps, had herself broken off her match with his cousin on +that account. She strove hard to bear herself in such a manner that +they should not think that. She put on as gay a face as she could +muster, and even took, beside the dress, a little blue-silk mantle to +embroider for Dorothy Fair's wedding outfit, and sang over it as she +worked. + +Still, in a way, although her pride led her to it, her singing and +her gayety were no pretence, for Madelon, through much suffering, had +reached that growth in love which enabled her to see over her own +self and her own needs. That knife-thrust she had meant for her lover +had stilled forever the jealous temper in her own heart, and she +fairly dreamed as she embroidered Dorothy's bridal mantle some dreams +of happiness that might have been Burr's; so filled was she with +purest love for him that his imagination possessed her own. + + + + +Chapter XXIII + + +It was told on good authority in the village that Parson Fair had +paid all Burr Gordon's back interest money on his mortgage, and so +released him from the danger of foreclosure; and then on equally good +authority it was denied. There was much discussion over it, but one +day the loafers in the store arrived at the truth. Parson Fair had +indeed offered to pay the interest, and Burr had declined. He had +also refused to live with his bride in his father-in-law's house, and +when Parson Fair had, with his gracefully austere manner, intimated +that he should be unwilling to place his daughter in such uncertain +shelter, had replied harshly that Dorothy should have a roof over her +head of his own providing while he lived; when he was dead it would +be time to talk about her father's. + +When Burr had gone to Lot Gordon and offered to part with a small +wood-lot of his, with a quantity of half-grown wood thereon, at +two-thirds of its real value to pay the interest, Margaret Bean had +listened at the door, and thus the story. + +"It is a sacrifice of a full third of its value, you know well +enough," Burr had said, standing moodily before his cousin. "If I +could wait for the growth of the wood, 'twould bring much more, but +I'll call it even on the interest I owe you, if you will. This is the +last foot of land I own clear." + +For answer Lot had bidden Burr open his desk and bring him a certain +paper from a certain corner. Then Margaret Bean had opened the door a +crack, and had with her two peering eyes seen Lot Gordon take his pen +in hand and write upon the paper, and show it to his cousin Burr. + +"Very well," said Burr, "I will go home and get the deed of the +wood-lot," and motioned towards the door, which drew to in a soft +panic as if with the wind. + +"Stop," said Lot; and Margaret Bean paused in her flight, and laid +her ear to the door again. "I don't want your woodland," said Lot. +"The interest is paid without it. It is your wedding-gift." + +"Why should you do this? I did not ask you to," Burr returned, almost +defiantly; and Margaret Bean had felt indignant at his unthankfulness. + +"You can take from your kinsman what you could not take from Parson +Fair," replied Lot. "I hear you will not go to nest in Parson Fair's +snug roof-tree, with your pretty bird, either." + +"I will die before I will take my wife under any roof but my own," +cried Burr, fiercely, "and I want no gifts from you either. I am not +turned beggar from any one yet. You shall take the woodland." + +Lot waved his hand as if he swept the woodland, with all its +half-grown trees, out of his horizon. "And yet," he said, "I thought +'twas what you left the other for. I should have said 'twas but your +wage that was offered you;" and he smiled at his cousin. + +"What do you mean, Lot Gordon?" + +Lot looked at him with sharp interest. "Was there another leaf of you +to read when I thought I was at the end," said he, "or were you writ +in such plain characters that I put in somewhat of my own imaginings +to give substance to them? Are you better, and worse, than I thought +you, cousin? Do you love this flower that has her counterpart in all +the gardens of the world, that is as sweet and no sweeter, that you +can replace when she dies by stooping and picking, better than the +one which has thorns enough to kill and sweetness enough to pay for +death, and whose bloom you can never match?" + +"I don't know what you mean," Burr said, impatiently and angrily; and +Margaret Bean outside the door wagged her head in scornful assent. + +"Then you loved Dorothy Fair better than Madelon Hautville, and 'twas +not her place and money that turned you her way," said Lot, as if he +were translating; and he kept his keen eyes on the other's face. + +Burr's face flashed white. "What right have you to question me like +this?" he demanded. + +"But you would not take the price, after all," said Lot, as if he had +been answered, instead of questioned. Then he looked up at his cousin +with something like kindness in his blue eyes. "It proves the truth +of what I've thought before," he said, "that oftentimes a man has to +sting his own honor with his own deeds to know 'tis in him." + +"My honor is my own lookout," Burr said, harshly. + +"And you've looked out for it better than I thought," Lot returned. + +Burr made another motion towards the door. "I can't stand here any +longer," he said. "I'll go for the deed." Margaret Bean, moving as +softly as she could in her starched draperies, fled back to the +kitchen. + +"Wait a minute," Lot said. + +"Well," returned Burr, impatiently. + +Lot got up, went over to the mantel-shelf, and stood there a minute, +leaning against it, his face hidden. When he looked at Burr again he +was so white that his cousin started. "Are you sick?" he cried, with +harsh concern. + +Lot smiled with stiff lips. "Only with the life-sickness that smites +the child when it enters the world, and makes it weep with its first +breath," he answered. + +"If you want to say anything to me, Lot, talk like a man, and not a +book," Burr cried out, with another step towards the door; and yet he +spoke kindly enough, for there was something in his cousin's face +which aroused his pity. + +"It is not--" began Lot, and stopped, and caught his breath. Burr +watched him half alarmed; he looked in mortal agony. Lot clutched the +carven edge of the mantel-shelf, then loosened his fingers. "If," he +said, brokenly, looking at Burr with the eyes of one who awaits a +mortal blow, "you want--Madelon--it is not--too late. She--I know how +she feels--towards you." + +Burr turned white, as he stared at him. "She--she was going to marry +you!" he said with a sneer. + +"Do--you know why?" + +Burr shook his head, still staring at his cousin. + +"It was the price of--your--acquittal." + +Burr did not move his eyes from Lot's face. He looked as if he were +reading something there writ in startling characters, against which +his whole soul leaped up in incredulity. "My God, I see!" he groaned +out slowly, at length. And then he said, sharply, "But--you were +going to marry her. Why did you give her up?" + +"I loved her," Lot said, simply. His white face worked. + +"But now--you--ask me to--" + +"I love her!" Lot said again, with a gasp. + +Burr strode forward, quite up to his cousin, and grasped his hand +warmly for the first time in his life. "Before the Lord, Lot," he +said, huskily, "'twas you, and not me, she should have fancied in the +first of it." + +"It is neither you nor me, nor any other man, that she will ever love +as he is," Lot said, shortly, straightening himself, for jealousy +stung him hard. + +"What do you mean?" + +"Woman reverses creation. She is a sublimated particle of a man, and +she builds a god from her own superstructure, and clothes him with +any image whom she chooses. She chose yours. Live up to her thought +of you, if you can." + +Burr dropped his cousin's hand, and surveyed him with that impatient +wonder which he always felt when he used his favorite symbolic +speech. "There's no question of my living up to the thought of any +woman's but my wife's," he said, bitterly, and turned away. + +"There's no knowing to what stature even a Dorothy Fair may raise a +man in her mind. You may not be able to grow to that." + +"It is all I shall attempt." + +Then Lot spoke again, in that short-breathed voice of his, straining +between the syllables. "Be sure--that you do--what--you will +not--regret. Honor is not--always what we--think it." + +"I have my own conception of it at least, and that I live up to. 'Tis +high time," said Burr, with a kind of proud scorn of himself in his +voice. + +"Madelon Hautville--loves--you." + +"She does not, after all this." + +"She does!" + +Burr stood straight and firm before his cousin, like a soldier. "If +she does," said he, "and if she loved me with the love of ten lives +instead of one, and I her, as perhaps I do, this last word of mine I +will keep!" Then he went out with not another word, and presently +returned with the deed of his little wooded property, which, however, +his cousin Lot finally persuaded him to keep, as Margaret Bean +gathered at the door, whither she had ventured again. + +The loafers knew it all by nightfall, the news having been brought to +the store by old Luke Basset, who had gotten it from Margaret Bean's +husband. In a day or two they knew more from the same source. Lot +Gordon had engaged his cousin to improve the Gordon acres which had +been lying fallow for the last ten years. He had offered him a good +salary. He wanted to carry out some new-fangled schemes which he had +got out of books. Burr was going right to work; he had hired a man +from New Salem to help him. + +People began to think better of Lot Gordon than they had ever done, +and they looked at Burr with more respect. Many had considered that +Dorothy Fair was not going to "do very well." "Guess if it wa'n't +for her father, and the chance of Lot's dying, she'd have a pretty +poor prospect," they had said. Now they agreed that "Maybe Burr +Gordon won't turn out so bad after all. Maybe he'll settle right down +and go to work, and pay off his mortgage, when he gets married, and +get a good living, even if Lot should hold out some time to come." + +They watched Burr as he swung up the street to Parson Fair's in the +spring twilights, with admiration for his stalwart grace, and growing +approval for those inner qualities which outward beauty sometimes but +poorly indicates. They approved also of the temperate hours which he +observed in his courting, for no one within eye-shot, or ear-shot, +but knew when Parson Fair's front door closed behind him. Burr, +during the last weeks before his marriage, never stayed much later +than half-past nine or ten at his sweetheart's house, and, in truth, +was not sorely tempted to do so. Mistress Dorothy in those days +behaved in a manner which might well have aroused to rebellion a more +ardent or a less determinately faithful lover. She had the candles +lit early in the beautiful spring twilights, and then she sat and +stitched and stitched upon her wedding finery, bending her fair face, +half concealed by drooping curls, assiduously over it, having never a +hand at liberty for a lover's caress, or an eye for his smiles. Then, +too, when Burr took leave, she stood before him with such a strange +effect of terror and hauteur that he could do no more than touch her +lips as if she had been a timid child, and bid her good-night. Had +Burr Gordon, in those days, been less aware of his own unfaithfulness +and weariness, and less fiercely resolved not to yield to it, he +might well have perceived Dorothy's. As it was he confused her +coldness with his own, and attributed it to the change in his own +heart, and not to that in hers. And even had he suspected it he would +not have made the first motion for freedom, so desperate was his +adherence to falsity for the sake of truth. + +Burr Gordon had at stake in this last more than any temporal good or +ill of love. He had at stake his whole belief in himself, and he was +also actuated by another motive which he scarcely admitted in his own +thoughts. + +Convinced he was that Madelon Hautville, believing as she did that he +had forsaken her for honest love of another, would hold him in utter +scorn and contempt were she to discover him false to Dorothy as she +had been to her; and his very love of her love, strangely enough, +kept him true to her rival. + +So he went to see Dorothy, and found no fault with her coldness. The +wedding preparations went on, and at last the day came. + + + + +Chapter XXIV + + +The wedding was to be at eight o'clock in the evening, and nearly all +the village was bidden to it--even many of the Unitarian faction who +had been Parson Fair's old parishioners. At half-past seven o'clock +the street was full of people. The village women rustled through the +soft dusk with silken whispers of wide best skirts. Young girls with +spring buds in their hair flounced about with white muslins, and +fluttering with ribbons, flitted along. The men, holding back firmly +their best broadcloth shoulders, marched past in their creaking +Sunday shoes. Before eight o'clock the fine old rooms in Parson +Fair's house were lined with faces solemnly expectant, as the faces +of simple country folk are wont to be before the great rites of love +and death. + +The women sat with their mitted hands folded on their silken laps, +their best brooches pinning decorously their fine-wrought +neckerchiefs, their bosoms filled with sober knowledge and patient +acquiescence. The young girls sat among them very still, with the +stillness of unrest, like birds who alight only to fly, their soft +cheeks burning, their necks and arms showing rosy through their +laces, their little clasped fingers full of pulses, and their hearts +tumultuous and stirred to imagination by the sweet surmise and +ignorance of love. They looked seldom at the young men, and the young +men at them, as they sat waiting. Still there were some who had +learned in city schools the suavities which cover like clothes the +primal emotions of life, and they moved about with exchanges of fine +courtesies, while the others looked at them wondering. + +When the tall clock in the south room struck eight, there was a hush +among these few who had learned to flock gracefully, chattering like +birds, bearing always the same aspect to one another, without regard +to selfish joys or pains. The lawyer's wife, in a grand gown and +topknot of feathers, which she was said to have worn to a great party +at the governor's house in Boston, composed to majestic approval her +handsome florid face, and stood back with a white-gloved hand on an +arm of each of her daughters, slender and pretty, and unshrinkingly +radiant in the faces of the doctor's college-bred son and his +visiting classmate. The doctor's wife, also, who had come of a grand +family, and appeared always on festive occasions in some +well-preserved splendor of her maiden days, which had been prolonged, +drew back, spreading out with both hands a vast expanse of purple +velvet skirt. She quite eclipsed as with a murky purple cloud the two +meek elderly women and a timid young girl who sat behind her. They +immediately peered around her sumptuous folds with anxious eyes lest +they might lose sight of the bridal party; but the bridal party did +not come. + +A passageway was left quite clear to the space between the windows on +the west side of the room, where it was whispered the bride and groom +were to stand, and the people all pressed back towards the walls; but +no one came. A little hum of wondering conversation rose and fell +again at fancied stirs of entrance. Folk hushed and nudged each other +a dozen times, and craned their necks, and the clock struck the +half-hour, and the bridal party had not come. + +In a great chair near the clear space between the windows sat the +bridegroom's mother, with a large pearl brooch gleaming out of the +black satin folds on her bosom. Her face, between long lace lappets, +looked as clearly pallid and passively reflective as the pearls. Not +a muscle stirred about her calm mouth and the smooth triangle of +forehead between her curtain slants of gray hair. If she speculated +deeply within herself, and was agitated over the delay, not a +restless glance of her steadily mild eyes betrayed it. + +People wondered a little that she should not be busied about the +bridal preparations, instead of waiting there like any other guest; +but it was said that Dorothy had refused absolutely to have any +helping hands but those of her old black slave woman about her. It +was known, too, that Dorothy had only once taken tea with Burr's +mother since the engagement, and everybody speculated as to how they +would get on together. Dorothy had, in truth, received the rigorously +courteous overtures of her future mother with the polite offishness +of a scared but well-trained child, and the proud elder woman had not +increased them. + +"When she comes here to live I shall do my duty by her, but I shall +not force myself upon her," she told Burr. Burr's mother had not seen +any of the dainty bridal gewgaws, but that she kept to herself. +People glanced frequently at her with questioning eyes as the time +went on; but she sat there with the gleam of her personality as +unchanged in her face as the gleam of the pearls on her bosom. + +"Catch her looking flustered!" one woman whispered to another. After +the clock struck nine a long breath seemed to be drawn simultaneously +by the company; it was quite audible. Then came a sharp hissing +whisper of wonder and consternation; then a hush, and all faces +turned towards the door. Burr Gordon, his face stern and white, stood +there looking across at his mother. She rose at once and went to him +with a stately glide, and they disappeared amid a distinct buzz of +curiosity that could no longer be restrained. + +"They've gone into the parson's study," whispered one to another. +Some reported, upon the good authority of a neighbor's imagination, +that Parson Fair had "fallen down dead;" some that Dorothy had +fainted away; some that the black woman had killed her and her +father. + +Meanwhile, Burr and his mother went into Parson Fair's study. There +stood the minister by his desk, with his proudly gentle brow all +furrowed, and his fine, long scholar-fingers clutching nervously at +the back of his arm-chair. He cast one glance around as the door +opened and shut, then looked away, then commanded himself with an +effort, and stepped forward and bowed courteously to the woman in her +black satin and pearls. Elvira Gordon looked from one to the other, +and the two men followed her glances, and each waited for the other +to speak. + +"Where is she?" she asked, finally. + +"She is up in her chamber," replied Parson Fair, in a voice more +strained with his own anxiety than it had ever been in the pulpit +over the sins of his fellow-men. "I know not what to say or do--I +never thought that daughter of mine--she will not come--" + +Then Elvira Gordon cast a quick, sharp glance at her son, which he +met with proud misery and resentment. "It is quite true, mother," he +said. "We have both tried, and she will not come." + +"Perhaps a woman--" said Parson Fair. "I wish her mother were alive," +he added, with a break in his voice. + +"I will go and see her if you think it is best," said Mrs. Gordon. In +her heart she rebelled bitterly against seeming to plead with this +unwilling bride to come to her son. Had she not felt guilty for her +son, with the conviction of his own secret deflection, she would +never have mounted the spiral stairs to Dorothy Fair's chamber that +night. Parson Fair led the way, and Burr followed. The people stood +back with a kind of awed curiosity. Some of the young girls were +quite pale, and their eyes were dilated. Folk longed to follow them +up-stairs, but they did not dare. + +At the door of Dorothy's chamber crouched, like a fierce dog on +guard, the great black African woman. When the three drew near she +looked up at them with a hostile roll of savage eyes and a glitter of +white teeth between thick lips. The parson advanced, and she sprang +up and put her broad back against the door and rolled out defiance at +him from under her burring tongue. + +But he continued to advance with unmoved front, as if she had been +the Satanas of his orthodoxy, which, indeed, she did not faintly +image. She moved aside with a savage sound in her throat, and he +threw the door wide open. There sat Dorothy Fair before them at her +dimity dressing-table, with all her slender body huddled forward and +resting seemingly upon her two bare white arms, which encompassed her +bowed head like sweet rings. Not a glimpse of Dorothy's face could be +seen under the wide flow of her fair curls, which parted only a +little over the curve of one pink shoulder. Dorothy wore her +wedding-gown of embroidered India muslin; but her satin slippers were +widely separated upon the floor, as if she had kicked them hither and +thither; and on the bed, in a great, careless, fluffy heap, lay her +wedding-veil, as if it had been tossed there. + +Elvira Gordon, at a signal from Parson Fair, entered the room past +the sullen negress, who rolled her eyes and muttered low, and went +close to the girl at the dressing-table. + +"Dorothy!" said Mrs. Gordon. + +Dorothy made no sign that she heard. + +"Dorothy, do you know it is an hour after the time set for your +wedding?" + +Dorothy was so still that instinctively Mrs. Gordon bent close over +her and listened; but she heard quite plainly the soft pant of her +breath, and knew she had not fainted. + +Mrs. Gordon straightened herself and looked at her. It was strange +how that delicate, girlish form under the soft flow of fair locks and +muslin draperies should express, in all its half-suggested curves, +such utter obstinacy that it might have been the passive +unresponsiveness of marble. Even that soft tumult of agitated breath +could not alter that impression. When Mrs. Gordon spoke again her +words seemed to echo back in her own ears, as if she had spoken in an +empty room. + +"Dorothy Fair," said she, with a kind of solemn authority, "neither I +nor any other human being can look into your heart and see why you do +this; and you owe it to my son, who has your solemn promise, and to +your father, whose only child you are, to speak. If you are sick, say +so; if at the last minute you have a doubt as to your affection for +Burr, say so. My son will keep his promise to you with his life, but +he will not force himself upon you against your wishes. You need fear +nothing; but you must either speak and give us your reason for this, +or get up and put on your wedding-veil and your shoes, and come down, +where they have been waiting over an hour. You cannot put such a +slight upon my son, or your father, or all these people, any longer. +You do not think what you are doing, Dorothy." + +Mrs. Gordon's even, weighty voice softened to motherly appeal in the +closing words. Dorothy remained quite silent and motionless. Then +Burr gave a great sigh of impatient misery, and strode across to +Dorothy, and bent low over her, touching her curls with his lips, and +whispered. She did not stir. "Won't you, Dorothy?" he said, gently, +then quite aloud; and then again, "Have you forgotten what you +promised me, Dorothy?" and still again, "Are you sick? Have I +offended you in any way? Can't you tell me, Dorothy?" + +At length, when Dorothy persisted in her silence, he stood back from +her and spoke with his head proudly raised. "I will say no more," he +said; "I have come here to keep my solemn promise, and be married to +you, and here I will remain until you or your father bid me go, with +something more than silence. That may be enough for my pride, but +'tis not enough for my honor. I will go back to your father's study, +Dorothy, and wait there until you speak and tell me what you wish." + +Burr turned to go, but Parson Fair thrust out his arm before him to +stop him, and himself came forward and grasped Dorothy, with hardly a +gentle hand, by a slender arm. "Daughter," said Parson Fair in a +voice which Dorothy had never heard from his lips except when he +addressed wayward sinners from the pulpit, "I command you to stop +this folly; stand up and finish dressing yourself, and go down-stairs +and fulfil your promise to this man whom you have chosen." The black +woman pressed forward, then stood back at a glance from her master's +blue eyes. + +Dorothy did not stir; then her father spoke again, and his nervous +hand tightened on her arm. "Dorothy," said he, "I command you to +rise"--and there was a great authority of fatherhood and priesthood +in his voice, and even Dorothy was moved before it to respond, though +not to yielding. + +Suddenly she jerked her arm away from her father's grasp, and stood +up, with a convulsive flutter of her white plumage like a bird. She +flung back her curls and disclosed her beautiful pale face, all +strained to terrified resolve, and her dilated blue eyes "I will +not!" she cried out, addressing her father alone, "I will not, +father. I have made up my mind that I will not." + +Then, as Parson Fair said not a word, only looked at her with stern +questioning, she went on, shrill and fast, "I will not; no, I will +not! Nobody can make me! I thought I would, I thought I must, until +this last. Now when it comes to this, I can do no more. I will not, +father." + +"Why?" said Parson Fair. + +"I would have kept my promise, father. I would have kept it, no +matter if--I would have been faithful to him if he--" Suddenly +Dorothy turned on Burr with a gasp of terror and defiance. "I would +never have done this, you know," she cried; "it would never have come +to this, if you had spoken and told me you were innocent." + +"What do you mean, child?" said Parson Fair, sternly. + +"He would not tell me that he did not stab his cousin Lot," replied +Dorothy, setting her sweet mouth doggedly. Her blue eyes met her +father's with shrinking and yet steadfast defiance. + +"Dorothy," said he, "do you not know that he is innocent by his +cousin's own confession?" + +"Why, then, does he not say so?" finished Dorothy. "How do I know who +did it? Madelon Hautville said she was guilty, then Lot Gordon; and +Burr would not deny his guilt when I asked him. How do I know which? +Madelon Hautville was trying to shield him; I am not blind. Then Lot +liked her. How do I know which?" Suddenly she cried out to Burr so +loud that the people in the entry below heard her, "Tell me now that +you are innocent, and either your cousin Lot or Madelon Hautville +guilty," she demanded. "Tell me!" + +Burr, white and rigid, looked at her, and made no reply. "Tell me," +she cried, in her sweet, shrill voice, "tell me now that you did not +stab your cousin Lot, and Madelon Hautville spoke the truth, and I +will keep my promise to you, even if my heart is not yours." + +Parson Fair grasped his daughter's arm again. "No man whom you have +promised to wed should reply to such distrust as this," he said. +"Dorothy, I command you to go down-stairs and be married to this +man." + +Then Dorothy broke away from him with a wild shriek. "No, I will not +marry this man with his cousin's blood on his soul! I will not, +father; you shall not make me! I will not! Night and day I shall see +that knife in his hand. I will not marry him, because he tried to +kill his cousin Lot. I will not, I will not!" The black woman pushed +between them with a savage murmur of love and wrath, and caught her +mistress in her arms, and crooned over her, like a wild thing over +her young. + +"There is no use in prolonging this, sir," Burr said to Parson Fair. + +The elder man looked at him with a strange mixture of helpless +dignity and sympathy and wrath. "You know that I have no share in +this," he said, and he glanced almost piteously from Burr to his +mother. "I could never have believed that my daughter--" + +"We will say no more about it, sir," responded Burr. "I hold neither +you nor your daughter in any blame." Then he offered his arm to his +mother, and the three went out and down-stairs, and the black woman +clapped to the chamber door with a great jar upon her mistress, whose +calm of obstinacy had broken into wailing hysterics which betokened +no less stanchness. Parson Fair, Burr Gordon, and his mother, at the +foot of the stairs among the curious wedding-guests, looked for a +second at one another. + +The parson's fine state seemed to have deserted him. There were red +spots on his pale cheeks. His long hands twitched nervously. "I +will--inform them," he said, huskily, at length, but Burr moved +before him. "No, sir; I will do it," he said. + +Then he strode into the great north parlor, where the more important +guests were assembled, and where he and Dorothy were to have been +married. He stood alone in the clear space between the windows, and +knew, as the eyes of the people met his, that they had heard +Dorothy's last wild cry, and knew why she would not marry him. He +stood for a second facing them all before he spoke, and in spite of +the shame of rejection which he felt heaped upon him by them all, and +a subtler shame arising from his own heart, in spite of the fact that +he could not offer any defense, or do aught but bend his back to the +full weight of his humiliation, he had a certain majesty of demeanor. +Revolt at humiliation alone precipitates the full measure of it, and +the strength which survives defeat, even of one's own convictions, is +of a good quality. Silence under wrongful accusation gives the +bearing of a hero. + +There was a hush over the assembly so complete that it seemed as if +the very personalities of the listeners were drawn back from +self-consciousness to give free scope for sound. When Burr spoke, +everybody heard. + +"The marriage between Dorothy Fair and myself is broken off," was all +he said. Then he went out of the room as proudly as if his bride had +been by his side, through the entry to the study. Parson Fair and his +mother were there. "They know it," he announced, quite calmly; then +he took his fine wedding-hat from the table. + +"Where are you going?" his mother demanded, quickly. + +"To walk a little way." Burr turned to Parson Fair. "I beg you not +to feel that you must deal severely with your daughter for this," he +said, "for she does not deserve it. She was justified in asking what +she did, and in feeling distrust that I did not answer." + +"If a wife's faith cannot survive her husband's silence, then is she +no true spouse, and 'twas the part of a man not to answer," said this +Parson Fair, who had all his life followed in most roads the lead of +his womankind, and not known it, so much state had he been allowed in +his captivity. + +"She was justified," said Burr, "and I beg you, sir, not to visit any +displeasure upon her. I have not at any time been worthy of her, +although God knows had she not cast me off, and did not this last, +with what I remember now of her manner for the last few weeks, make +me sure that her heart is no longer mine, I would have lived my life +for her, as best I could; and will now, should she say the word." + +With that, Burr Gordon thrust on his wedding-hat, and was out of the +study and out of the south door of the house. + + + + +Chapter XXV + + +In the yard was drawn up in state, behind the five white horses, the +grand old Gordon coach, which had not been used before since the +death of Lot's father. Lot had insisted upon furnishing the coach and +the horses for his cousin's wedding. The man who stood by the horses' +heads looked up at Burr in a dazed way when he came out of the house +and spoke to him. + +"When my mother is ready you can take her home, Silas," said Burr. +"Then drive over to my cousin's, and put up the coach and the +horses." + +The man gasped and looked at him. "Do you hear what I say?" said +Burr, shortly. + +The man gave an affirmative grunt, and strove to speak, but Burr cut +him short. "Look out for that bad place in the road, before you get +to the bridge," he said, and went on out of the yard. The road was +suddenly full of departing wedding-guests, fluttering along with +shrill clatter of persistently individual notes, like a flock of +birds. + +Burr, out of the yard, passed along through their midst with a hasty +yet dignified pace. He said to himself that he would not seem to be +running away. He looked neither to the right nor left, except to +avoid collisions with silken and muslin petticoats, yet he was +conscious of the hush of voices as he passed, and knew that they all +recognized him in the broad moonlight. + +When he reached the lane which led across-lots to the old place, he +plunged into it by a sudden impulse. He went half-way down its leafy +tunnel; then he stopped and sat down on a great stone which had +fallen off the bordering wall. + +Great spiritual as well as great physical catastrophes stun for a +while, and there is after both a coming to one's self and an +examining one's faculties, as well as one's bones, to see if they be +still in working order. Burr Gordon, sitting there on his stone of +meditation, in the moonlit dapple of the lane, came slowly to a full +realization of himself in his change of state, and strove to make +sure what power of action he had left under these new conditions. + +His first thought was a cowardly one--that he would sell out, or +rather give up his estate to his cousin, take his mother, and turn +his back upon the village altogether. He knew what he had to expect. +He tasted well in advance the miserable and half ludicrous shame of a +man who has been openly jilted by a woman. He tasted, too, the +covertly whispered suspicion which had perhaps never quite departed, +and which now was surely raised to new life by Dorothy's loud cries +of accusation. He knew that he was utterly defenceless under both +shame and suspicion, being fettered fast by his own tardy but stern +sense of duty and loyalty. It seemed to him at first that he would be +crippled beyond cure in his whole life if he should stay where he +was; and then he felt the spring of the fighting instinct within him, +and said proudly to himself that he would turn his back upon nothing. +He would brave it all. + +There was a light wind, and now and then the young trees in the lane +were driven into a soft tumult of whispering leaves. Burr did not +notice when into this voice of the wind and this noise as of a crowd +of softly scurrying ghosts there came a crisp rustle of muslin and a +quick footstep up the lane. He only looked up when Madelon Hautville +stopped before him and looked at him with incredulous alarm, as if +she could not believe the evidence of her own eyes. + +Dressed like a bride herself was Madelon Hautville, in a sheer white +gown, which she had fashioned for herself out of an old crape shawl +which had belonged to her mother, and cunningly wrought with great +garlands of red flowers. She was going to Burr Gordon's wedding, not +knowing the lateness of the hour; for her brother Richard had played +a trick upon her, and set back the clock two hours, when to his great +wrath she would not stay at home. The others were half in favor of +her going, thinking that it showed her pride; but Richard was sorely +set against it, and watched his chance, and slipped back the hands of +the clock that she should be too late to see the wedding of the man +who had forsaken her. + +Madelon looked at Burr, and he at her, and neither spoke. Then, when +she saw surely who it was, she cried out half in wonder and half +chidingly, as if she had been his mother reproaching him for his +tardiness: "What are you doing here, Burr Gordon? Do you know 'tis +nearly eight o'clock, and time for your wedding?" + +"'Tis nearly ten," said Burr, "and there is no wedding." + +"Nearly ten?" + +"Yes." + +"But 'twas not eight by our clock." + +Burr took out the great gold timepiece which had belonged to his +father, and held it towards her, and she saw the face plainly in the +moonlight. + +"What does this mean?" she said; and then she cried, half shrinking +away from him, "Are you married then? Where is she?" + +"Dorothy Fair is at home in her chamber, and I am not married, and +never shall be." + +"Why--what does this mean, Burr Gordon?" + +"She will not have me, and--no blame to her." + +"Will not have you, and the people there, and the hour set! Will not +have you? Burr, she shall have you! I promise you she shall. I will +go talk to her. She is a child, and she does not know--I can make her +listen. She shall have you, Burr. I will go this minute, and talk to +her, and do you come after me." + +Madelon gave a forward bound, like a deer, but Burr sprang up and +caught her by the arm. "Why do you stop me, Burr Gordon?" she cried, +trying to wrest her arm away. + +"Do you think I have no manhood left, Madelon Hautville, that I will +let you, _you_ beg a woman who does not love me to marry me?" + +"She does love you, she shall love you!" + +"I tell you she does not!" Burr spoke with a bitterness which might +well have come from slighted love, and, indeed, so complex and +contradictory are the workings of the mind of a man, and so strong is +the bent when once set in one direction, that not loving Dorothy +Fair, and loving this other woman with his whole heart, he yet felt +for the moment that he would rather his marriage had taken place and +he were not free. His freedom, which he knew was a shame to welcome, +galled him for the time worse than a chain, and he felt more injured +than if he had loved this girl who had jilted him; for something +which was more precious to him than love had been slighted and made +for naught. + +"She does--you are mad, Burr Gordon! She was all ready to marry you. +She came to me to help on her wedding-clothes. She was all smiling +and pleased. How could she be pleased over her wedding-clothes if she +did not love you? She does, Burr! She is a child--I can talk to her. +I will make her. Let me go, Burr! You wait here, and not fret. Oh, +how pale you look! I tell you, you shall have her, Burr!" + +"I tell you, Madelon, she does not love me, and I will not have you +go." + +Madelon stood looking at him, her face all at once changing curiously +as if from some revelation from within. She remembered suddenly that +old scene with Eugene, and a suspicion seized her. "There's somebody +else!" she cried out, fiercely. "There's no truth in her. If she +thinks--she shall not--nor he--I will not have it so!" + +"For God's sake, Madelon, don't!" said Burr, not fairly comprehending +what she said. He sat down again upon the stone, and leaned his head +upon his hands. In truth he felt dazed and helpless, as if he had +reached suddenly the mouth of many roads and knew not which to take. +The intricacy of the situation was fairly paralyzing to an order of +mind like his, which was wont to grasp, though shrewdly enough, only +the straight course of cause and effect. He revolved dizzily in his +mind the fact that he could not tell Madelon the reason which Dorothy +had given for her rejection of him, and the conviction was fast +gaining upon him that it was not the true and only reason. He held +fiercely to his loyalty to Madelon, and his shammed loyalty to +Dorothy, and his slipping clutch of loyalty to himself, and knew not +what to say nor what course to take. + +Madelon, as he settled back upon the stone and bowed his head, made +towards him one of those motions which the body has kept intact from +the primitive order of things, when it was free to obey Love; then +she stood back and looked at him a moment, while indignation and that +compassion which is the very holiness of love swelled high within +her. Then suddenly she leaned forward against him in her white robes, +with the soft impetus of a white flowering tree driven by the wind, +and put her arms around him, and drew his unhappy head against her +bosom, and stroked his hair, and poured out in broken words her wrath +against Dorothy Fair, and her pity for him. And all this she did in +utter self-despite and forgetfulness, not caring if he should +discover how great her love for him still was, believing fully that +his whole heart had belonged to the other girl, and was breaking for +her, and arguing thence no good for herself. + +"She shall never marry him, that I swear to you, Burr," she cried, +passionately, "and in time she may turn to you again; there is no +faith in her." + +Burr listened a while bewildered, not fully knowing nor asking what +she meant, letting his head rest against her bosom, as if he were a +child whom she comforted. + +"Burr, you shall have her, you shall have her yet!" she said, over +and over, as if Dorothy were a sweetmeat for which he longed, until +at last a great shame and resolution seemed to go over him like a +wave, and he put her away and rose up. + +"Madelon," he said, "you don't know. Listen. You will scorn me after +this--you will never look at me again, but listen: Dorothy must never +know, for all the slight of this last must come from her and not from +me, since she is a woman and I a man; but you shall know the whole +truth. I never loved Dorothy Fair, Madelon, not as I love you, as God +is my witness. She was pretty to look at, and I liked--but you cannot +understand the weakness of a man that makes him ashamed of himself. I +left you, and--I went--courting her because she was Parson Fair's +only daughter, and I was poor, and that was not all the reason. I +liked her pretty face and her pretty ways well enough, but all the +time it was you and you alone in my heart; and, knowing that, I left +you, though I was a man. I turned Judas to my own self, and denied +and would have sold the best that was in me. Now you know the truth, +Madelon Hautville." + +Madelon looked at him. Her lips parted, as if her breath came hard. + +Burr made as if to pass on without another word, but she held out her +hand to stop him, though she did not touch him. + +"Stop, Burr," she said, with a strange, almost oratorical manner, +that he had never seen in her before. It was almost as if she mounted +before his eyes a platform of her own love and higher purposes. +"Listen to me," she said. "That night when I was in such terrible +anger with you that for a second I would have killed you, I put it +out of your power forever to do anything that could turn me against +you again. I broke my own spirit that night, Burr. The wrong I would +have done you outweighs all you ever have done or ever can do me. +There is no wrong in this world that you can do me, if I will not +take it so; and as for the wrong you may have done yourself--that +only makes me more faithful to you, Burr." + +Burr stood looking at her, speechless. It was to him as if he saw the +true inner self of the girl, which he had dimly known by +half-revealings but had never truly seen before. For a minute it was +not Madelon Hautville in flesh and blood who stood before him, but +the ghost of her, made evident by her love for him; and his very +heart seemed to melt within him with shame and wonder and worship. +"Oh, Madelon!" he gasped out, at length. + +But Madelon turned away then. "You must go home now," said she, "and +I must. Good-night, Burr." + +"Good-night," said Burr, as if he repeated it at her bidding. + +Then they passed without touching each other. Madelon went home down +the lane, across the fields, and Burr went out in the silent street, +whence all the wedding-guests had departed, and homeward also. + + + + +Chapter XXVI + + +In this little Vermont village, lying among peacefully sloping hills, +away from boisterous river-courses, there was small chance of those +physical convulsions which sometimes disturb the quiet of +generations. The roar of a spring freshet never smote the ears of the +dwellers therein, and the winters passed with no danger of +avalanches. From its sheltered situation destructive storms seldom +launched themselves upon it; the oldest inhabitant could remember +little injury from lightning or hail or wind. + +However, there is no village in this world so sheltered in situation +that it is not exposed to the full brunt of the great forces of human +passion, when they lash themselves at times into the fury of storm. +It was here in this little village of Ware Centre, which could never +know flood or volcanic fire, as if a sort of spiritual whirlpool had +appeared suddenly in its midst. The thoughts of all the people, lying +down upon their pillows, or rising for their daily tasks, centred +upon it, and it was as if the minds of all were prone upon the edge +of it, gazing curiously into the vortex. + +The Sunday after Burr Gordon's disastrous wedding-day the faces of +all the people on their way to meeting wore the same expression, in +different degrees of intensity. One emotion of strained curiosity and +wonder made one family of the whole village. The people thought and +spoke of only one subject; they asked each other one question--"Will +any of them be at meeting?" The Unitarian church was nearly deserted +that Sunday, for Parson Fair's former parishioners returned to their +old gathering place, under stronger pressure, for the time, than +religious tenets. + +It was a burning day for May--as hot as midsummer. The flowers were +blossoming visibly under the eyes of the people, but they did not +notice. They flocked into the meeting-house and looked about them, +all with the same expression in their eyes. + +When Burr Gordon and his mother entered, a thrill seemed to pass +through the whole congregation. Nobody had thought they would come. +Mrs. Gordon, gliding with even pace, softly murmurous in her Sunday +silk, followed her son, who walked with brave front, although he was +undeniably pale, up the aisle to their pew. He stood about to let his +mother enter, meeting the eyes of the people as he did so; then sat +down himself, and a long glance and a long nudge of shoulders passed +over the meeting-house. Burr and his mother both knew it, but she sat +in undisturbed serenity of pallor, and he stirred not a muscle, +though a red spot blazed out on each cheek. + +Madelon Hautville sat in the singing seats, but he never looked at +her nor she at him. There were curious eyes upon her also, for people +wondered if Burr would turn to her now Dorothy Fair had jilted him; +but she did not know it. She heeded nobody but Burr, though she did +not look at him, and when she stood up in the midst of her brothers +and sang, she sang neither to the Lord nor to the people, but to this +one weak and humiliated man whom she loved. The people thought that +she had never sung so before, recognizing, though ignorantly, that +she struck that great chord of the heart whose capability of sound +was in them also. For the time she stood before and led all the +actors in that small drama of human life which was on the village +stage, and in which she took involuntary part; and the audience saw +and heard nobody but her. + +Burr, stiff as a soldier, at the end of his pew, felt his heart leap +to hope and resolve through the sound of this woman's voice in the +old orthodox hymns, and laid hold unknowingly, by means of it, of the +love and force which are at the roots of things for the strengthening +of the world. With weak and false starts and tardy retrogrades he had +woven around his feet a labyrinth of crossing paths of life, but now, +of a sudden, he saw clearly his way out. He trampled down the +scruples which hampered and blinded him like thorns and had their +roots in a false pride of honor, and recognized that divine call +of love to worship which simplifies all perplexities. He would +take that girl singing yonder for is wife, if she were indeed so +generous-minded after all, not now, but later, when there could be no +possibility of slight to Dorothy Fair. His honest work in the world +he would do, were it in the ploughshares or the wayside ditches, with +no striving for aggrandizement through untoward ways, and so would he +humbly attain the full dignity of his being. + +When Madelon Hautville stopped singing not one in the meeting-house +had seen Burr Gordon stir, but the soul in him had surely turned and +faced about with a great rending as of swathing wills that bound it. + +Parson Fair preached that morning. Great had been the speculation as +to whether he would or not. When he stood up in his pulpit and faced +the crowded pews and the steely glances of curious eyes through the +shifting flutter of fans, he was as austerely composed as ever; but a +buzzing whisper went through the audience like a veritable bee of +gossip. "He looks dreadful," they hissed in each other's ears, with +nudges and nods. + +All the principal participants in the village commotion were there +except Lot Gordon and Dorothy Fair. Dorothy had not come, in spite of +her father's stern commands, and sterner they had been than any +commands of his to his beloved child before. Dorothy had cowered +before her father, in utter misery and trepidation, after the company +had left that wedding-night, but yielded she had not--only fallen ill +again of that light fever which so easily beset her under stress of +mind. + +That Sunday morning, striving to rise and go to meeting as her father +said, and being in truth willing enough, since she had a terrified +longing to see Eugene Hautville in the choir and ascertain if he were +angry or glad, she fell back weak and dizzy on her pillows, and the +doctor was called. Dorothy's fever ran lightly, as all ailments of +hers, whether mental or physical, were wont to do; and yet she had a +delicacy of organization which caused her to be shaken sorely by +slight causes. A butterfly may not have the capacity for despair, but +the touch of a finger can crush it; and had it more capacity, there +would be no butterflies. + +It was a full month before Dorothy was able to go out of doors, +and all that time the gossips were cheated out of the sight of +her, and her father was constrained to treat her with a sort of +conscience-stricken tenderness, in spite of her grave fault. Her +mother had never risen from a fever which seemed akin to this; and +Dorothy, in spite of his stern Puritan creed, was yet dearer to him +than that abstraction of her which he deemed her soul. + +Looking at the girl, flushed softly with fever, her blue eyes shining +like jewels, as she lay in her white nest, he knew that he loved her +life more fiercely than he judged her sins. He would turn his back +upon her and go out of her chamber, his black height bowed like a +penitent, and down to his study, and wrestle there upon his knees for +hours with that earthly and natural love which he accounted as of the +Tempter, yet might after all have been an angel, and of the Lord. And +when Dorothy came weakly down-stairs at last, with the great black +woman guarding her steps as if she were a baby, he found not in +himself the power of stern counsel and reproof which he had decided +upon when she should have left her chamber. + +All the neighbors knew when Dorothy Fair first stepped her foot out +of doors, and told one another suspiciously that she did not look +very sick, and that they guessed she might have come out sooner, and +gone to meeting, had she been so minded. + +And in truth the girl, beyond slight deflections in the curves of her +soft cheeks, and a wistful enlarging and brightening of her blue +eyes, as in thoughtful shadows, was not much changed. The first +Sunday when she appeared in the meeting-house she wore, to the +delight and scandal of the women, one of the new gowns and hats of +her bridal outfit. Dorothy Fair, in a great plumed hat of peach-blow +silk, in a pearly silk gown and pink-silk mitts, in a white-muslin +pelerine all wrought with cunning needlework, sat in the parson's +pew, and uplifted her lovely face towards her father in the pulpit, +and nobody knew how her whole mind and fancy were set, not upon the +sermon, but upon Eugene Hautville in the singing-seats behind her. +And nobody dreamed how, as she sat there, she held before her face, +as it were, a sort of mental hand-mirror, in which she could see her +head of fair curls, her peach-blow hat, and her slender white-muslin +shoulders reflected from Eugene's dark eyes. The fall of every curl +had she studied well that morning, and the folds of the muslin +pelerine over her shoulders. And when the congregation arose for the +hymns and faced about towards the singers, then did Dorothy let her +blue eyes seek, with an innocent unconsciousness, as of blue flowers, +which would have deceived the very elect, Eugene's face. + +But his black eyes met hers with no more fiery glances. Eugene never +even looked at her, but sang, with stern averted face, which was +paler and thinner than Dorothy's, though he had had no illness save +of the spirit. In vain Dorothy sought his eyes, with her blue +appealing ones, during every hymn; in vain once or twice during the +sermon she even cast a glance around her shoulder with a slight fling +of her curls aside, and a little shiver, as if she felt a draught. +Eugene never looked her way that she could see. + +When the long service was over, Dorothy, with sly, watchful eyes, +quickened her pace, and strove so to manage that she and Eugene +should emerge from the meeting-house side by side. But he was +striding far ahead, with never a backward glance, when she came out, +lifting daintily her pearly skirts. Burr was near her, but him she +never thought of, even to avoid, and his mother's stately aside +movement was not even seen by her. She courtesied prettily to those +who met her face to face, from force of habit, and went on thinking +of no one but Eugene. + +Again, in the afternoon, Dorothy went to meeting, though her pulses +began to beat, with a slight return of the fever, and again she +strove with her cunning maiden wiles to attract this obdurate Eugene, +and again in vain. That night Dorothy lay and wept awhile before she +fell asleep, and dreamed that she and Eugene were a-walking in the +lane and that he kissed her. And when she awoke, blushing in the +darkness, she resolved that she would go a-walking in the lane on +every pleasant day, in the hope that the dream might come true. + +And Mistress Dorothy Fair, with many eyes in the neighbors' windows +watching, went pacing slowly, for her delicate limbs as yet did not +bear her strongly, day after day down the road and into the lane, +and, with frequent rests upon wayside stones, to the farther end of +it. And yet she did not meet Eugene therein, and her dream did not +come true. + +But it happened at last, about the middle of the month of June, when +the great red and white roses in the dooryards were in such full +bloom that in another day they would be past it and fall, that +Dorothy and Eugene met in the lane; for there is room enough in time +for most dreams to come true, and for the others there is eternity. + +That afternoon Dorothy had gone forth as usual, but she said to +herself that he would not come; and half-way down the lane she ceased +peering into the green distances for him, and sat herself down on a +stone, and leaned back against the trunk of a young maple, and shut +her eyes wearily, and told herself in a sort of sad penitence that +she would look no more for him, for he would not come. + +The grass in the lane was grown long now, with a pink mist over the +top of it; the trees at the sides leaned together heavy with foliage, +and the bordering walls were all hidden under bushes and vines. +Everywhere on bush and vine were spikes and corymbs of lusty +blossoms. Birds were calling to their mates and their young; the +locusts were shrilling out of depths of sunlight. Dorothy, in the +midst of this uncontrolled passion of summer, was herself in utter +tune and harmony with it. She was just as sweet and gracefully +courtesying among her sisters as any flower among the host of the +field; and she had silently and inconsequently, like the flower, her +own little lust of life and bloom which none could overcome, and +against which she could know no religion. This Dorothy, meekly +leaning her slender shoulders against the maple-tree, with her blue +eyes closed, and her little hands folded in her lap, could no more +develop into aught towards which she herself inclined not than a +daisy plant out in the field could grow a clover blossom. Moreover +her heart, which had after all enough of the sweetness of love in it, +opened or shut like the cup of a sensitive plant, with seemingly no +volition of hers; therefore was she in a manner innocently helpless +and docile before her own emotions and her own destiny. + +She sat still a few minutes and kept her eyes closed. Then she +thought she heard a stir down the lane, but she would not open her +eyes to look, so sadly and impatiently sure was she that he would not +come. Even when she knew there was a footstep drawing near she would +not look. She kept her eyes closed, and made as if she were asleep; +and some one passed her, and she would not look, so sure was she that +it was not Eugene. + +But that afternoon Eugene Hautville, who had gone all this time the +long way to the village, felt his own instincts, or the natural +towardness of his heart, too strong for him. Often, watching from a +distance across the fields, he had seen a pale flutter of skirts in +the lane, and knew well enough that Dorothy was there, and had turned +back; but this time he walked on. When he came to Dorothy he cast one +glance at her, then set his face sternly and kept on, with his heart +pulling him back at every step. Dorothy did not open her eyes until +he had fairly passed her, and then she looked and saw him going away +from her without a word. Then she gave a little cry that no one could +have interpreted with any written language. She called not Eugene by +his name; she said no word; but her heart gave that ancient cry for +its lover which was before all speech; and that human love-call +drowned out suddenly all the others. + +But when Eugene stopped and turned, Dorothy blushed so before his +eyes that her very neck and arms glowed pink through her lace tucker +and sleeves. She shrank away, twisting herself and hiding her face, +so that he could see naught of her but the flow of her muslin skirts +and her curling fair locks. + +Eugene stood a minute looking at her. His dark face was as red as +Dorothy's. He made a motion towards her, then drew back and held up +his head resolutely. + +"It is a pleasant day," he said, as if they were exchanging the +everyday courtesies of life; and then when she made no reply, he +added that he hoped she was quite recovered from her sickness. + +And then he was pressing on again, white in the face now and +wrestling fiercely with himself that he might, as it were, pass his +own heart which stood in the way; but Dorothy rose up, with a sob, +and pressed before him, touching his arm with her slender one in her +lace sleeve, and shaking out like any flower the rose and lavender +scent in her garments. + +"I want to speak to you," she said, and strove in vain to command her +voice. + +Eugene bowed and tried to smile, and waited, and looked above her +head, through the tree branches into the field. + +"I want to know if--you are angry with me because--I would not--marry +Burr," said Dorothy, catching her breath between her words. + +"I told you that you had no reason--that he was not guilty," Eugene +said, with a kind of stern doggedness; and still he did not look at +her. + +"I could not marry--him," Dorothy panted, softly. + +"I told you you had no reason," Eugene said again, as if he were +saying a lesson that he had taught himself. + +"Are you angry--with me because I could not marry him?" Dorothy +asked, with her soft persistency in her own line of thought, and not +his. + +Then Eugene in desperation looked down at her, and saw her face worn +into sweet wistfulness by her illness, her dilated eyes and lips +parted and quivering into sobs, like a baby's. + +"I am not angry, but I encourage no woman to be false to her +betrothal vows," he said, and strove to make his voice hard; but +Dorothy bent her head, and the sobs came, and he took her in his +arms. + +"Are you angry with me?" Dorothy sobbed, piteously, against his +breast. + +"No, not with you, but myself," said Eugene. "It is all with myself. +I will take the blame of it all, sweet," and he smoothed her hair and +kissed her and held her close and tried to comfort her; and it seemed +to him that he could indeed take all the blame of her inconstancy and +distrust, and could even bear his self-reproach for her sake, so much +he loved her. + +"I would not have married Burr--even if--he had told me--he was +innocent," Dorothy said, after a while. She was hushing her sobs, and +her very soul was smiling within her for joy as Eugene's fond +whispers reached her ears. + +"Why?" said Eugene. + +"Because--you came first--when you looked at me in the +meeting-house," Dorothy whispered back. Then she suddenly lifted her +face a little, and looked up at him, with one soft flushed cheek +crushed against his breast, and Eugene bent his face down to hers. +They stood so, and for a minute had, indeed, the whole world to their +two selves, for love as well as death has the power of annihilation; +and then there was a stir in the lane, a crisp rustle of petticoats +and a hiss of whispering voices; and they started and fell apart. +There in the lane before them, their eyes as keen as foxes, with the +scent of curiosity and gossip, their cheeks red with the shame of it, +and their lips forming into apologetic and terrified smiles, stood +Margaret Bean and two others--the tavern-keeper's wife and the wife +of the man who kept the village store. + +For a second the three women fairly cowered beneath Eugene +Hautville's eyes, and Margaret Bean began to stammer as if her old +tongue were palsied. Then Eugene collected himself, made them one of +his courtly bows, turned to Dorothy with another, offered her his +arm, and walked away with her out of the lane, before the eyes of the +prying gossips. + + + + +Chapter XXVII + + +It was four o'clock that summer afternoon when the three +women--Margaret Bean, the tavern-keeper's wife, and the storekeeper's +wife--who had followed Dorothy and Eugene into the lane to pry upon +them set forth to communicate by word of mouth the scandalous +proceedings they had witnessed; and long before midnight all the +village knew. The women crept cautiously at a good distance behind +Dorothy and Eugene out of the lane, and watched, with incredulous +eyes turning to each other for confirmation, the pair walk into +Parson Fair's house together. Then they could do no more, since their +ears were not long enough, and each went her way to tell what she had +seen. + +All the neighbors knew when Eugene Hautville left Parson Fair's +house that afternoon, but their knowledge stopped there. Nobody +ever discovered just what was said within those four walls when +Dorothy--who, soft plumaged though she was, had flown in the +faces of all her decorous feminine antecedents and her goodly +teaching--confronted her father with her new lover at her side. + +It was safe enough to assume, for one who knew her and them well, +that the two men did finally turn and protect her and shelter her +each against himself, and his own despite, as well as one another. +After that Eugene Hautville was seen every Sunday night and twice in +the week going into Parson Fair's house, and the candles burned late +in the north parlor. + +The banns were published in a month's time. Some accounted it +unseemly haste, after the other banns which had come to naught, and +some said 'twas better so, and they blamed not Parson Fair for +placing such a flighty and jilting maid safe within the pale of +wedlock--and they guessed he was thankful enough to find a husband +for her, even if 'twas one of the Hautvilles. + +However, Eugene was held in somewhat more of esteem than the others, +since he had in his own right a snug little sum in bank which had +come to him from an uncle whose name he bore. When it was known that +Eugene had bought the old Squire Damon place, a goodly house with a +box-bordered front walk, and a pillared front door, and would take +his bride home to it, public favor became quite strong for him. Folk +opined that he would, even if he was a Hautville, make full as good a +husband as Burr, and that Dorothy Fair would have the best of the +bargain all around. While many held Dorothy in slight esteem for her +instability and delicacy, and thought she was no desirable helpmeet +for any man, some were of the opinion that she had shown praiseworthy +judgment and shrewdness in jilting Burr for Eugene. + +Dorothy this time made small show of her wedding, and was married in +her father's study with only the necessary witnesses and no guests. +Eugene Hautville had chafed. Dorothy also, with her feminine desire +for all minor details of happiness, was aggrieved that she could +never now appear before the public gaze in all the splendor of her +wedding-gear. But Parson Fair stood firm for once, and would have it +so. + +All the watchful neighbors saw was, after nightfall and moonrise, +Parson Fair's door open, and the bride and groom appear for a second +in a golden shaft of light which flashed into gloom at the closing of +the door, and left there two shadows, as if the story of their life +and love had already been told and passed into history. And then the +neighbors saw them move up the road with long vanishing flutters of +the bride's white draperies, and the great black woman, steadying a +basket against her hip, in their wake, following her mistress like a +faithful dog, with perhaps the most unselfish love of all. + +The black woman favored Eugene more than she had ever favored Burr, +perhaps because she was a true slave of love, and leaned with the +secret leanings of her mistress's heart against all words of mouth, +obeying her commands with a fuller understanding of them than Dorothy +herself. + +When this new lover came a-courting, the African woman had always +greeted him at the door with that wide, sudden smile of hers, at once +simple, like a child's, and wild, like the grin of an animal; and her +voice, in her thick jargon, was nearly as softly rich to him as to +Dorothy. Moreover she kept no longer jealous watch at the door of the +room where the lovers sat, and was fond of treating the young man +with little cakes which she made with honey, whose like was to be +eaten nowhere else in the village. + +After Dorothy and Eugene were wedded they faded into comparative +insignificance in the thoughts of the villagers, which were then +centred upon Burr Gordon and Madelon. The curtain went down upon +Eugene and his bride as upon any pair of wedded lovers in his +Shakespeare book. + +Burr was in exceedingly ill repute, but he did not himself know it. +Many of his old friends treated him coolly, but he attributed that to +the embarrassed sympathy and constraint which they naturally felt +towards him in his position. He thought they avoided him because they +knew well that he would suspect even friendliness lest it contain a +pity which would hurt his pride; and he thanked them for it. But the +truth was, that outcry of Dorothy's against him on the wedding-night +had lashed up into a hurricane all the suspicions which Lot's avowal +had stilled. They did away easily enough with the force of Lot's +statement, for there are many theories to furnish skin-fits for every +difficulty, if one searches in the infinity of possibilities. + +Lot's true reason none fathomed, for it was beyond their +sounding-lines of selfish curiosity; but they found another which +seemed to meet the needs of the case as well. + +Lot, they said, had bargained with Burr to give up all claim to +Madelon, and he would set him free by confessing an attempt at +suicide. Margaret Bean, it was reported, had seen the letter which +Lot had written to Burr in prison. When Madelon, who, half crazed by +anxiety about her lover, had wrongfully accused herself to save him, +had seen him turn to her rival and scorn her after his release, she +had accepted Lot in a rage of pride and jealousy, as he had planned +for her to do. The breaking off of the marriage betwixt her and Lot +they mostly attributed to the simple cause he had mentioned--his +failing health--though some thought that he had hesitated about +marrying into the Hautville family when it came to it. + +Suspicion had been for a time somewhat hushed against Madelon, the +more so that she had been seen, since Dorothy had jilted Burr, to +pass him with scarcely a nod, and was popularly supposed to hold an +Indian grudge against him, and to be still anxious to wed his cousin +Lot. + +However, the tide soon turned again. On the Sunday after the banns +between Dorothy and Eugene had been published, Burr had been seen to +walk home openly with Madelon from evening meeting; and it was soon +known that he was courting her regularly. + +Then darker whispers were circulated. People said now that they were +accomplices in attempted crime. That black atmosphere of suspicion +and hatred, which gathers nowhere more easily than in a New England +town, was thick around Burr and Madelon. They breathed, though as yet +it was in less degree, the same noxious air as did the persecuted +Quakers and witches of bygone times. The gases which lie at the +bottom of human souls, which gossip and suspicious imaginations +upstir, are deadlier than those at the bottoms of old wells. Still +Madelon and Burr knew nothing of it, nor Burr's mother, nor Lot, nor +any of the Hautville men. The attitude of Madelon's father and +brothers towards herself and Burr had done much to strengthen +suspicion. High voices and strange remarks had been overheard by folk +strolling casually, of a pleasant evening, past the Hautville house. + +In truth, at first old David Hautville and all his sons except Eugene +had risen against Burr and Madelon, all their pride in arms that she +should return to this man who had once forsaken her for another. But +later they had yielded, for their pride was undermined by their own +gloomy convictions as to Madelon, which they confided not to one +another. However, the boy Richard still greeted Burr surlily, with a +fierce black flash under frowning brows, and scarcely spoke to +Madelon at all until the day before her marriage. That was set some +two months after Dorothy's. + +Burr and Madelon, during the days of their betrothal, were as closely +beset by spies on every hand as a party of Madelon's old kindred +might have been, encamped in a wooded country, where every bush +veiled savage eyes and every tree stood in front of a foeman, but +they did not know it. Folk knew when Mrs. Gordon went to visit her +son's betrothed, though 'twas on a dark evening. They knew what she +wore, and how long she stayed. They knew when Madelon returned her +visit; they knew, to remember, in many cases, more details of their +daily lives than Burr and Madelon themselves. + +Madelon had few wedding preparations to make. The wedding-garments +which she had stitched with sorrow for her marriage with Lot would +serve her now. She employed her time in increasing still further the +household stores of linen for her father's and brothers' use, when +she should be gone, and in making a great stock of sweet-sauce, +jelly, and cordials from the fruits and berries of the season. + +One afternoon in late summer, when the high blackberries were ripe, +Madelon set forth with a great basket on her arm. A fine cordial, +good for many ills, she knew how to make from the berries, and had +planned to brew a goodly quantity this year. She went down the road a +way, then over some bars, with her hands on the highest and a spring +like a willow branch set free, across a pasture where some red cows +were grazing, then over another set of bars, into a rough and shaggy +land sloping gradually into a hill. Here the high blackberries grew +in great thorny thickets, and Madelon pressed among them warily and +began picking. She had not picked long--indeed the bottom of her +basket was not covered--when she heard a rustle in the bushes behind +her and looked over her shoulder hurriedly, and there was Lot Gordon. + +Lot came forward from a cluster of young firs, parting the rank +undergrowth with the careless wonted movement of one who steers his +way among his own household goods. Well used to all the wild disorder +of out-doors was Lot Gordon, and could have picked his way of a dark +night among the stones and bushes and trees of many a pasture and +woodland. Moreover, Lot, uprising from the great nest which he had +hollowed out for himself from a sweet fern growth under the balsam +firs, exhaling their fragrant breath of healing, and coming into +sight, made better show than he had ever done in his own book-walled +study. + +Here, where the minds of other men swerved him and incited him not, +where only Nature herself held him in leading-strings with +unsearchable might or was laid bare before his daring eyes and many a +secret discovered, Lot Gordon gained his best grace of home. The +balsam firs framed him with more truth than the door of his own +dwelling. To Madelon, as he came out from them, he looked more a man +than he had ever done; for all unconsciously to her mind of strong +and simple bent, he had seemed at times scarce a man but rather some +strange character from a book, which had gotten life through too +strong imagining. + +Moreover to-day his likeness to Burr came out strongly. Madelon saw +the cant of his head and swing of his shoulders, with a half sense of +shame that he was not Burr, and yet with a sudden understanding of +him that she had never felt before. She had not seen him since her +betrothal to Burr. She thought to herself that he was thinner, and +that the red flush on his cheeks was the flush of fever and not of +the summer sun. + +"How do you do, Lot?" she said. Madelon's cheeks were a splendid red; +her green sunbonnet hung by its strings low on her neck, and her +head, with black hair clinging to her temples in moist rings, was +thrust out from the green tangle of vines like a flower. When Lot did +not answer at once, but stood pale and trembling, as if an icy wind +had struck him, before her, she pulled the pricking vines loose from +her dress, and came out. "How do you do, Lot?" she said, again. Still +Lot did not answer, and after a minute she turned with impatient +dignity as if to enter her fastness again; but then Lot spoke. + +"Like mankind," he said, "'tis not well, and it tends to death, but +we were born with a lash at our backs to do it." + +Madelon knit her brows impatiently, for this was his old talk, that +savored to her of ink and parchment and thoughts laid up in studied +guise, like mummies. Then she noted his poor face, and again the look +like Burr, which caused her heart to melt with the fancy of her love +in like case, and she said, with that gracious kindness which became +her well, that it was a pleasant day, and the smell of the balsam fir +was good for him. + +But Lot looked at her with his great eyes set in hungry hollows, and +answered her in that stilted speech which she liked not, trying to +smile his old mocking smile with his poor lips, which only trembled +like a child's when tears are coming. "There are rivers of honey and +gardens of spices, and branches dropping balm," said Lot, "where a +man can walk but his soul cannot follow him. His soul waits outside +and strives to taste the sweet when he swallows it, and smell the +balm and the spices when he breathes them in, but cannot; and that is +only good for a man which is good for his soul." + +"I don't know what you mean," said Madelon, shortly. + +"I mean that I am outside all the good of this world, since the one +good which I crave and cannot have is the gate to all the rest," said +Lot. Then suddenly he cried out passionately, lifting up his face to +the sky, "O God, why need it be so? Why need a man be a bond-slave to +one hunger? Why need this one woman be the angel with the flaming +sword before all the little pleasures I used to taste and love? Why +need she come between me and the breath of the woods, and the incense +of the fields, and their secrets which were to me before my own, so I +can take no more delight in them?" + +Madelon looked at him half in pity, half in proud resentment. "If it +is so," she said, "it was not of my own accord I came; you know that, +Lot Gordon. I meant no harm to you, and the harm that I did you +brought upon yourself. I would not have come here to-day if I had +known you were here and that it would disturb you." + +"You could not have helped coming," said Lot. "I have been here since +morning, and you have been here all the while." + +"Why do you talk so, Lot Gordon?" cried Madelon, angrily, for Lot's +covert meanings fretted her straightforwardness beyond endurance. +"You know that I have just come here!" + +"You came here when I did," said Lot, "when the fields were dewy. You +held up your skirts and stepped daintily. I went ahead and you +followed, high-kilted, pointing your steps among the wet grasses like +a dove. Had I looked over my shoulder I could have seen you, but I +looked not lest the power of flight might be in you like the dove." + +"I shall go away if you talk like this. I will not stay here and +listen to it; you know I was not here," said Madelon, and she paled a +little, for she almost thought, used to his fanciful talk though she +were, that Lot had gone mad. + +"We walked towards the sun," persisted Lot, "but you were in my +shadow and needed not to cast down your eyes. I saw some red flowers, +but I did not pick them for you, and I heard you stop and break the +stems as you came after. When we reached the shade of the firs there +I sat down, but I left the space there, where the needles are +smoothest and thickest, for you, and there you sat too, all day." + +"Lot Gordon!" + +"You need not mind, Madelon, for all day I looked not over my +shoulder once. I saw not your face, nor touched your lips, nor your +hand, nor even the fold of your dress. I harmed you not, even in my +dreams, dear." + +Madelon, standing quite free of the clinging blackberry vines, held +up her dark head like an empress, and looked at him. In truth she +felt little pity for Lot Gordon then, for she liked not being made to +follow other than Burr even in a man's dreams. Still, when she spoke +it was not unkindly, for in spite of this jealousy of herself for +Burr, and in spite of her inability to understand such worship of +herself, when she was spent in worship of another, she remembered how +she had nearly taken the life of this man, and how he had striven to +shield her, though against her will, and on hard and selfish +conditions, and how he had at last sacrificed himself to set her +free. + +"Lot," said she, "there must be no more of this. I am almost your +cousin's wife. You have no right." And then she repeated it +passionately. "I say you have no right to love me like this, if I do +not love you, Lot Gordon. I will have no other man but Burr think me +at his heels. I will follow him till the day of my death, but no +other. I would only have married you to save his life--you know that. +You know I never loved you. You have no right." + +"The right of love is every man's who sets not himself before it," +returned Lot, with sad dignity. "I will not yield that even for love +of you, Madelon; but myself shall be pushed yet farther out of sight, +I promise you, and you shall be pestered no more, child. Go on with +your berry-picking." + +A great mound of rock uplifted itself like the swelling crouch of +some fossil animal among the sweet ferns and the wild scramble of +vines. Lot sank down upon it panting for breath. He leaned his head +wearily forward between his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. + +Madelon looked at him hesitatingly; she opened her mouth as if to +speak, then was silent. She looked at the high vines, black with +fruit, then at the field beyond, as if half minded to go away and +leave them. + +Finally she fell to picking again without a word. Lot coughed once, +but he did not speak. Madelon kept glancing at him as she picked. +Compunction and pity softened more and more her fiery heart, the more +so since she felt the guilt of happiness in the face of the woe of +another upon her. Finally she said, with that fond reversion to the +little homely truths and waysides of life with which the feminine +mind strives often to comfort, that she would put up for him a jug of +her blackberry cordial, and furthermore that she hoped his cough was +better. She said it with half-constrained kindness, not looking up +from her berry-picking; but Lot lifted his head and thanked her and +said the cough was nearly cured, with eagerness to respond to grace, +like a child who has been chidden. + +Then he watched her with bright eyes as she picked, his breath coming +hard and quick. "Madelon!" he said, and stopped. + +"What, Lot?" + +"You remember--the gewgaws which I--showed you, Madelon--the feathers +and ribbons and satins, and the other things? You cared not for them +then. Will you have them now, for your wedding-gift?" + +"No, Lot," said Madelon, quickly. "I thank you, but I cannot take +them; I have enough." + +"Why not?" + +"I have enough." + +"There is no need for you to tell me why," said Lot. "A woman like +you would almost veil herself from her own eyes for the sake of a +lover, so great is her jealousy. The thoughts and the dreams with +which I bought the gewgaws profane them in your eyes while I am +alive." + +"I do not need them, and I cannot take them, Lot," said Madelon, +steadily. + +Lot said no more. He leaned his head upon his hands again. Madelon +could hear his panting breath. She resolved that she would go away +across the fields, down the road a piece, to another berry patch that +she knew of. Still she did not go. One of those impulses which seem +to come from authority outside one's self, or else from some hidden +springs of motion which we know not of, had seized her. She looked at +Lot and moved softly away a few steps, holding her skirts clear of +the vines. Then she paused and looked again, and was away again. Her +face was resolute and wary, as if she saw something which she feared +and loathed, and yet would brave. Then she went close to Lot, and +stood still over him a minute. + +"Lot," she said. + +He looked up at her, wonderingly. "Are you sick, Madelon?" he cried, +and would have risen, but she motioned him back and spoke, turning +her face away the while. + +"Once I asked Burr to give me the kiss that I would have killed him +for," said she, in a voice so sharpened by her stress of spirit that +it might have come out of the flames of martyrdom. "Now I ask you to +give me the kiss that I almost took your life for." + +"Madelon!" + +"It is all I can do to make amends," said she. Then she looked full +at him, and did not shrink when she met his eyes, though her face +grew white before the mad longing in them. + +Lot stood up and leaned towards her, and she stood waiting. Then he +threw out his hands, as if he would push her back, and turned away. +"You owe me no amends," he said, hoarsely. "The wound that you gave +me was my just desert for striving to take what you were not willing +to give." + +"Your life is your life," said she, steadily, "and I almost took it +away from you. I would do this in token of repentance for that and +whatever other harm I have done you unwittingly." + +"You owe me no amends, and I will take none," said Lot, again. + +Then he faced about towards her, and she started and looked at him, +wondering and half in awe, for suddenly the love in the heart of the +man showed itself in his face like a light, and it was almost as if +she saw, unbelieving and denying, her own transfigured image in his +eyes. + +"Good-bye, Madelon," said Lot. + +"Good-bye," she returned, faintly, and looked at him for the first +time in all her life without the thought of Burr between them. + +But that Lot did not know, and stood a moment gazing at her as a man +gazes at one beloved under the shadow of long parting, striving to +gain possession of somewhat to hold and cherish aside from the +conditions of the flesh. Then he said good-bye again, and went away, +with that soft winding glide of his through the underbrush which he +might have learned from the wild dwellers in the woods, and was out +of sight through the violet glooms of the firs. + + + + +Chapter XXVIII + + +The night before Madelon was married, as if by some tacit +understanding of peace and harmony, the Hautvilles came together for +a concert in the great living-room. Not one had said to another, +"This is Madelon's last night at home, and we have been wroth with +her; let us bury the hatchet, and raise our voices with one accord in +our old songs;" but one impulse had seemed to move them all, as one +wind moves the forest trees who are kin to one another, and they were +all together at twilight, even Eugene and his bride. + +Burr Gordon came also, but he and Madelon did not sit apart that +evening. The weather was cool, even for late September, and an early +frost was threatened. A great fire blazed on the hearth. Burr and +Dorothy, on the settle in the chimney-corner, listened to the +Hautville chorus, and Burr looked always at Madelon and Dorothy at +Eugene. The Hautvilles stood together before the fire, old David with +his bass-viol at his side, like the wife of his bosom; Louis holding +his violin on his shoulder, like a child, pressing his dark cheek +against it, and Eugene and Abner and Richard and Madelon uplifting +their voices in the old songs and fugues. + +The doors and windows were shut. Nobody heard nor saw Lot Gordon when +he crept like a fox round the house, and came under a window and +rested his chin on the sill and remained there looking at Madelon. +She wore that night a soft gown of crimson wool, which clung about +her limbs and her bosom, and showed her bare throat swelling with +song into new curves which were indeed those of music itself. Lot, as +he looked at her, saw her with the full meaning of her beauty as +never Burr could, and as she could never see herself, for there is no +looking-glass on earth like a vain love when it rises above the +slight of its own desire. Greater praise than she would ever know +again in her whole life went up for Madelon outside that window, as +she sang, but she neither knew it nor missed anything when Lot went +away. + +At ten o'clock the concert ceased. Lot slunk away noiselessly, and +soon Eugene and Dorothy went home, and Burr, lingering for a +good-night kiss or two in the door. + +Madelon set bread to rise that night, and fulfilled her little round +of nightly tasks for the last time. Her father and brothers went to +bed and left her there--all but Richard. He remained in a corner of +the settle, his slim length flung out carelessly, his head tipped +back as if he were asleep; but his black eyes flashed bright under +their lids at his sister whenever she did not look at him. Madelon +said not a word until her tasks were done; then she came and stood in +front of Richard, and looked at him, frowning a little, for her pride +was stung at his treatment of her, but holding out her hand. "Can't +you bid me good-night, Richard?" said she, and tried to smile at him +with that old loving comradeship which he had disowned. + +The boy maintained his sullen silence for a moment, and Madelon +waited. Then suddenly he cried, "Good-night," with sharp intonations, +like the response of a surly dog, and sprang up and thrust something +hard into her hand, with such roughness that it hurt her, and she +started. + +"'Tis a wedding-present for you," Richard said, savagely, with +averted face. "I thought the one I gave you before would not serve +for two weddings. Though there be but one bride, there should be +different gifts." + +Madelon gave one look at Richard; then she opened her hand, and there +on her reddened palm lay a little gold pencil, which the boy must +have spent all his little savings to buy. Madelon held it out to him. +"Take it back," said she; "I want no presents with words like that to +sweeten them." + +Richard's clenched hand hung by his side. He shook his head sullenly. + +"Take it!" said Madelon; but he made no motion to do so. + +"Then I shall let it fall on the floor," said Madelon. + +"Let it," returned Richard, and forthwith the little gold pencil +rolled on the floor under the settle, and Madelon turned away with a +white face. But before she had reached the door Richard was at her +side and his hand on her arm. "Oh, Madelon!" he said, striving to +keep the sobs back. Then Madelon turned and laid a hand on each of +his shoulders, and held him away, looking at him. + +"Why did you speak to me like that?" said she; and then, without +waiting for an answer, drew the boy's head down to her bosom, and +held it there a moment, stroking his hair. "If ever you are sick +after I am gone," said she, "I will come and take care of you; and if +you don't get good things to eat I will see to that, too;" and then +she kissed Richard's dark head, and put him away gently, bidding him +with a tender laugh "not to be a baby," and went over to the settle +and picked up the little gold pencil, and praised it and said she +would treasure it all her life. + +And then she bade Richard follow her into the best room, and opened +the carved oak chest and displayed six beautiful shirts made of +linen, which she had herself spun and woven and wrought with finest +needlework in bands and bosoms, for a parting gift to him, because he +was the nearest of all her brothers, though she must not say so. "The +others have shirts enough," said she; "I have seen to that, for I +have meant to do my duty to you all, but none of the others have +bosoms and wristbands stitched like these, and the linen is extra +fine." + +That night Richard would not go to his chamber, which he shared with +his brother Louis, lest he wake and spy his face flushed with tears, +but crept stealthily back down-stairs, and, all unbeknown to any one, +lay all night on the settle in the living-room. He slept little, and +often waked and wept in the darkness like a child rather than one of +the fiery Hautville brothers. + +When wrath with a beloved one is stilled in the human heart and love +takes its place, it is with a threefold increase, a great rending of +spirit, and a cruel turning of weapons against one's self. Richard +was one who would always deal with entireties, being capable of no +divisions nor subtleties of praise or blame. Whereas his anger had +been fierce against his sister that she should love and marry the man +who had flouted her, now it was turned wholly against himself for his +injustice and ill-treatment of her. He racked himself with the memory +of his surly words and looks; and those six shirts of fine linen, +with the cunning needlework in band and bosom, seemed the veritable +scriptural coals of fire on his head. Also good and simple reasons +for his sister's course came to him as he lay there and influenced +him still more. "She had it in her mind to kill him, though 'twas the +other she struck," he said to himself; "'tis only fit that she should +make amends to him for that and keep his house for him, and bake and +brew and spin and weave for him." Richard in the darkness nodded his +head in agreement with his own argument, and yet he hated Burr as +well as ever, and the next morning when he saw him stand beside his +sister before Parson Fair, he clenched his slender brown hands until +the sinews stood out, and his black eyes still flashed hostility at +him. Yet when he looked at Madelon's face his own softened, and he +set his mouth hard to keep back the quiver in it. Madelon wore not +the silk of green and gold in which she had planned to be wedded to +Lot; that she could not bring her mind to do, since the old wretched +dreams and imaginations seemed to cling to the garment and desecrate +it for this. She wore instead a sober gown of a satin sheen with the +rich purplish-red hue of a plum, which set off the dark bloom of her +face by suggestion rather than contrast; but all the boy Richard +noted of her costume was his little gold pencil slung on the long +gold chain around her neck. + +Madelon and Burr were married quite early in the morning, in the best +room of the Hautville house, and nobody outside the two families was +bidden to the wedding. After the marriage the bride tied on a +white-muslin apron and passed cake and currant wine; and the great +Hautvilles sitting in sober state around the room, Elvira Gordon in +her black satin and pearls, pretty Dorothy, and Parson Fair partook. + +Then the bride went up to her chamber and put on a pelisse of stuff +like her gown, lined with canary-colored satin, and a little cap of +otter and a great muff which she had fashioned herself out of skins +which her brothers had brought home, and took over her arm, since the +day was frosty, a long tippet of otter which she could wind round her +throat, if need be, and came down all equipped for her wedding-journey. + +In front of the Hautville house stood waiting a smart chaise with a +fine young horse in the shafts, and the bride and groom came out and +got in and drove away. But first, while Burr was gathering up the +reins, David Hautville's hoarse voice through the open door besought +him to wait, and presently the old man came striding forth with the +skin of a mighty bear which he had slain single-handed years ago, and +which had been his chiefest treasure next to his viol ever since, +kept beside his bed, whence no one dared remove it. He flung it up +into the chaise, and tucked it well in over his daughter's knees. +"Oh, father, I will not take your bearskin!" Madelon cried, and the +tears came into her eyes, for this touched her more than anything; +and the memory of aught that she had ever lacked in tenderness +towards them all seemed to smite her in the face. + +"'Tis a sharp day for the time of year, and there'll be a frost +to-night," was all old David Hautville said, and strode back into the +house, keeping his face well turned away. + +The horse that Burr drove was a young animal that he had purchased +lately. It was of the stock of the Morgans, and stood with the +faithfulness of a sentinel; but when the signal to start was given +stepped out proudly as if to a battle charge, with eager tossings of +heavy mane and high flings of knees and hoofs; and yet, when fairly +on the road, never broke the swift precision of his course. + +"He's got a fine horse there," Abner Hautville said, in his emphatic +bass, as he watched them out of sight; and he further declared that +for his part he would be willing to trade the roan for him. Then the +boy Richard turned upon him, with a cry that was something between a +sob and an oath: "Yes, trade off the roan and all we've got left to +him, I'll warrant ye will!" he choked out. Then he was gone, pelting +off madly across the fields, with his bold and innocent young heart, +that had as yet known no fiercer passion than this for his sister, +all aflame with grief and angry jealousy, as of one who sees his best +haled off before his eyes, and still with awed submission to a power +which he recognizes and understands not. + + + + +Chapter XXIX + + +As Burr and Madelon, setting forth on their wedding-journey, drove +down the village street, they met many whom they knew; and had it not +been for their self-engrossment they could not have failed to notice +and wonder at the cold greetings they received, and the many averted +faces which greeted them not at all. + +Indeed, Burr did remark upon it when they met Daniel Plympton, who +nodded with a surly air and turned his fat and pleasant countenance +resolutely away, with a gesture that seemed to belie his own +identity. + +"What's come across Dan'l?" he said, laughing, for at that time +coldness from the outside world seemed but provocative of amusement. +Then he sang out gayly to the Morgan horse, and they flew along the +road, under the outreaching branches, red and gold and russet, past +old landmarks and houses and more familiar faces which bore strange +looks towards them, and yet surprised them not, for a strangeness was +over all the old sights and ways for them both. To the bride and +groom, riding through the village where they had been born and bred, +and whence all their earthly imaginations had sprung, came an +experience like a resurrection. They saw it all: the paths their feet +had trodden, the doors they had entered, the friends they had known +from childhood, but all seemed no longer the same, since their own +conditions of life had changed; and change in one's self is the vital +spring of change in all besides. + +As they rode along old associations lost their holds over them in +their new world, which was the outcome of the old, and would in its +turn wax old again. Burr looked at his own home, as he went by, as if +he had never seen it; even his memory of himself and his childhood +days was dim, and he and Madelon, glancing at Lot's windows and +having his image forced, as it were, upon their consciousness, +regarded it as they might have done an actor in some old drama of +history in which they also had taken part, but which had long since +passed off the stage. + +They left the house behind and were swiftly out of sight, over the +crest of a long hill with a great spread of golden maple branches +closing after them like a curtain, and neither of them dreamed in +what straits Lot Gordon lay behind his vacant windows--and all +through this love and bliss and paradise of theirs. + +The smart chaise and the Morgan horse had scarcely disappeared before +Margaret Bean came hurriedly out of Lot Gordon's house and went +rattling in her starched draperies towards the village; and soon +after that the doctor was seen driving thither furiously in his +tilting sulky, while windows were opened and spying heads thrust out +all along his course. + +An hour later everybody knew that Lot Gordon, some said by a fall in +climbing over a stone wall, some said by a severe fit of coughing, +had caused his old wound to beset him again with danger of his life. +That night, indeed, the tide of rancorous gossip swelled high. The +spirit of persecution and righteous retribution which finds easy +birth in New England villages was fast getting to itself feet and +hands and tongue and a whole body of active powers. + +A stormy bridal night had Burr and Madelon known had they been at +home; and had Lot Gordon died during the next three days, in which he +lay in imminent danger, there had been fleet horses on the track of +the swift Morgan, and the wedding-journey had come to a close. + +Yet the Hautville men heard nothing of the bitterness which was +gathering towards Madelon and Burr, for people, fearing their fierce +tempers, hesitated until the time was come to disclose it to them. +Even old Luke Basset dared not carry news to them. The tongues were +always hushed when one of them drew near; and as for Eugene, who, +having a wife, might perhaps have discovered it, he and Dorothy took +the stage coach for Boston the day after the marriage, and were +paying a visit at Dorothy's aunt's there. + +After three days Lot Gordon was reported to be no longer hovering +between life and death, and yet it was said on good authority, +through the doctor's wife in fact, that he might at any time, by an +injudicious step or a harder coughing-spell, end his life through the +opening of that old wound, for which they held either Madelon or +Burr, or perhaps both, accountable; and public indignation swelled +higher and higher. It was resolved that when the bridal couple +returned a constant espionage should be kept upon them, and in case +of Lot's death active measures should be taken. + +"We ain't goin' to have a man murdered to death in our midst by no +French and Injuns nowadays and let it slide," proclaimed a fiery +spirit in the store one night. Then when the door opened and Abner +Hautville, dark and warlike in his carriage as any fighting chief, +appeared, the man asked ostentatiously for a "quart of m'lasses, and +not so black and gritty as the last was nuther," transferring the +rancor in his tone to an inoffensive object with Machiavellian +policy. + +However, Margaret Bean's husband was in the store that night, and +heard it all. He had been sent thither for a half-pound of ginger, +and told not to linger; but linger he did, disposing his old bones +with a stiff fling upon a handy half-barrel and listening to every +word with a shrewd sense, for which no one would have given him +credit, that he could by repetition and enlargement, if necessary, +appease his wife's wrath at his delay. The workings of the human mind +towards selfish ends even in the simplest organization have an art +beyond all mechanism, and can astonish the wisest when revealed. + +Nobody who saw old man Bean pottering homeward that night, his back +bent with age, yet moving with a childlike shuffle, carrying his +parcel of ginger with tight clutch lest he drop it, like one whose +weariness of body must make up for feebleness of mind, dreamed what a +diplomat he was in his humble walk of life, and what an adept still +in doubles and turns and twists and dodges towards his own petty +ends. + +A sweeter morsel than any sugar old man Bean, overborne with a sense +of naughtiness and disobedience, like a child, carried home to his +wife to quiet her chiding tongue. + +Hardly had he entered the door when he heard afar the swift rattle of +her starched skirts, like a very warning note of hostility, and cut +in ahead of her reproaches with a triumphant manner. + +"Pretty doin's there's goin' to be," said he; "never was nothin' like +it in this town. That's what I stayed for. Thought ye'd orter know." + +"What do you mean?" asked Margaret Bean, staring. + +"Ye know what the doctor says about _him_?" The old man jerked his +head towards the door. + +Margaret nodded. + +"Well, they're goin' to have 'em both hung for murder the minute he +draws his last breath." + +"Can't till they're tried," said Margaret, with a sniff of scorn at +her husband's lack of legal knowledge. + +"Well, they're goin' to clap 'em into jail the minute they git home, +an' keep 'em there till they can hang 'em," persisted old man Bean. + +"They ain't." + +"I tell ye they are!" + +Old man Bean had a cup of tea, plentifully sweetened with molasses, +made from the ginger which he had purchased, and went to bed happy +and peaceful, as one who has worked innocently and well his small +powers to his own advantage; and soon after that Lot also heard the +news which he had brought. + +Margaret Bean said to herself that it was her duty; and her duty, and +a great devouring thirst of curiosity, overcame her natural fear of +injuring the sick man. + +Lot Gordon was still in bed, but propped up on pillows, with a candle +on the stand at his side, reading one of his leather-covered books. +Margaret Bean shrank back when she had delivered herself of her news, +for the flash in Lot's eyes was like lightning; and she waited in +trembling certainty as for thunder. + +"I tell ye 'tis a lie!" cried Lot Gordon. "Do ye hear, 'tis a lie! Go +yourself and tell them so from me. The wound has naught to do with +this. It was naught but a scratch, for I had not courage enough to +strike deep, much as I wanted to be quit of the world and the fools +in it. Go you down to the store and tell the gossips that have no +affairs of their own, and must needs pry on their neighbors so. Dare +any one of them to turn knife on his own flesh for the first time and +strike deeper! The next time I'll do better. Tell them so! The fools! +Sodom and Gomorrah, and fire from Heaven for wickedness! Lord, why +not fire from Heaven for damned foolishness, that does more harm to +the world than the shattering of all the commandments into +stone-dust!" + +"I felt that 'twas my duty to let you know, sir," stammered Margaret +Bean, backing farther and farther away from him. + +"Tell the fools that I say, and I'll swear to it, and so will the +doctor swear, that 'twas not the wound that has been my ailment, but +my cursed lungs; but if 'twas 'twould be naught to them, for I struck +the blow myself. I tell you that neither the one nor the other of +them struck the blow--it was I. Do you hear? It was I!" + +"Yes, sir," said Margaret Bean, trembling, her eyes big, her white +face elongated in her starched cap ruffles. + +"Go to bed!" said Lot, savagely, and the old woman scuttled out, glad +to be gone. + +Never before had Lot addressed her so. "I believe he did do it +himself," she told her husband next morning, for she could not wake +him to intelligence that night; "he's jest ugly 'nough to." + +The next day at early dawn Lot's bell, which was kept on his stand +beside the bed, in case he should be worse in the night and need +assistance, tinkled sharply. + +"Send your husband after the doctor," Lot ordered, peremptorily, when +Margaret answered it; and presently early risers saw old man Bean +advancing in a rapid shuffle towards the doctor's, and soon the +doctor himself whirled past, his back bent to the rapid motion of his +gig. The report that Lot Gordon was worse went through the village +like wildfire. A crowd collected in the store as soon as the shutters +were down; there was a knot of men before the lawyer's office waiting +for him to come; and several hot-headed young fellows pressed into +the stable and urged upon Silas Beers that he should keep the old +white racer in readiness for an emergency that day, and also several +others which, if not as fleet, had good staying powers. + +When the doctor entered Lot Gordon's chamber Margaret Bean followed, +tremblingly officious, in his wake, with a bowl and spoon in hand. + +"I want to see the doctor alone," said Lot; and the old woman +retreated before his coldly imperious order. "Stay out in the +kitchen," ordered Lot, further, "and don't come through the entry; I +shall hear you if you do." + +"Yes, sir," replied Margaret Bean, and obeyed, nor dared listen at +the door, as was her wont, so terrified was she lest Lot could indeed +hear and had heard in times past. + +The doctor, redolent of herbs and drugs, set his medicine-chest on +the floor, and advanced upon Lot, who waved him back with a +half-laugh. + +"Lord, let's have none of that nonsense this morning," he said. "Sit +down; I want to talk to you." + +The doctor was gray and unshaven and haggard as ever, from a midnight +vigil, the crumbs of his hasty breakfast were on his waistcoat; his +eyes were bright as steel under heavy, frowning brows. + +"Are ye worse? Has it come on again?" he demanded. + +"No; sit down." + +The doctor snatched up his medicine-chest with a surly exclamation. + +"Where are you going?" asked Lot. + +"Back to my breakfast. I'll not be called out for nothing by you or +any other man after I've been out all night. If you want a gossip, +get the parson; he's got time enough on his hands. A man don't have +to work so many hours a day saving souls as he does saving bodies." + +Lot laughed. "And neither souls nor bodies saved by either of you, +after all," said he, "for the Lord saves the one, if he has so +ordained it; and as for the other, your nostrums only work so long as +death does not choose to come." + +"Have it your own way; save your own soul and your own body, as ye +please, for all me," said the doctor, who was adjudged capable when +crossed of being surly to a dying man; and he made for the door. + +"For God's sake stop," cried Lot, "and come back here and listen! I +did not call you for nothing. The lives and deaths of more than one +are at stake; come back here!" + +The doctor clamped his medicine-chest hard on the floor. "Be quick +about it, then," said he, and sat down in a chair at Lot's bedside. + +Lot fumbled under his pillow and produced a folded paper which he +handed to the doctor. "I want you to sign this," said he. + +The doctor scowled over the paper, got out his iron-bowed spectacles, +adjusted them, and read aloud: + +"I, Justinus Emmons, practising doctor of medicine, do hereby declare +that the death of Lot Gordon of Ware Centre will, when it takes +place, be due to phthisis, and phthisis alone, and not in any degree, +however small, to the wound inflicted by himself some months since. +And, furthermore, I declare that his death will follow from the +natural progress of the disease of phthisis, which has not in any +respect been accelerated by his self-inflicted wound." + +"You want me to sign this, do you?" said the doctor. + +"I will call in Margaret Bean and her husband for witnesses," said +Lot. + +"You think I am going to sign this?" + +"I want it in addition to the certificate of the cause of death which +you will have to make out after my decease. 'Tis an unnecessary +formality, but I would have it so," Lot returned. + +The doctor dashed the paper on the bed. "If you think I am going to +subscribe to a lie for you, or any other man, you're mistaken," he +cried. "It was enough for me to hold my tongue when you made that +fool statement of yours that wouldn't have deceived a man with the +brains of an ox." + +"My death will be due to phthisis; my left lung is almost consumed, +and you know it," affirmed Lot. + +"And I tell you," said the doctor, stoutly, "that your death from +phthisis might not have occurred for ten years to come. Does a tree +die because half its boughs are gone? When you die, you die of that +wound. The evil was greater than I thought at the time. It takes less +to kill a diseased man than a sound one." + +"Then my death will be due to my disease and not to my wound, if it +would not have killed a sound man," cried Lot, eagerly. + +"I tell you, your death will be due to that wound that Madelon +Hautville, with maybe your cousin at her back, gave you." + +Lot's face glared white at the doctor. "I gave the wound to myself!" + +The doctor laughed. + +"I tell you, I gave the wound myself!" + +"Take your wound into court, and see what they say." + +"What do you mean?" + +"I'll give any man who will stab himself in just the same place, with +the knife held in just the same way, every dollar I have in the +world." + +"You can't prove it." + +"I can prove it." + +"I can do away with your proof," said Lot, in a strange voice. The +doctor looked at him sharply. + +"Then you will not sign this paper?" Lot said, presently. + +"No, I will not; and I tell you, once for all, when you die I make +out my certificate as it should be." + +"How?" + +"By a wound from a knife or other sharp instrument, inflicted by a +person or persons unknown." + +Lot's face, towards the doctor, looked as if death had already struck +it; but he spoke firmly. "How long will it be, first?" he asked. + +"I don't know." + +"Approximate." + +"A false step may do it." + +"I can lie still!" + +"A coughing-spell may do it." + +"I will not cough!" + +"More than that, a thought may do it, if it stirs your heart too +much. I tell you as I should want to be told myself: your life hangs +by a thread." + +"Sometimes a thread does not break," Lot said, with a meditative +light in his eyes. + +"That's true enough." + +"This may not." + +"True enough." + +"How long will you give it to last, before you sign this paper?" + +"A year." + +"Then you will sign this if I live a year from to-day?" + +"No, I will not sign it, for you may have another stab on New-year's +day, if you seem likely to live so long," said the doctor, shortly; +"but I will promise you not to make out your certificate of death +from this wound." + +"How great a chance of life have I?" Lot asked, hoarsely, after a +minute's pause. + +"Small." + +"Yet there is one?" + +"Yes." + +The doctor opened his chest, and began selecting some bottles. + +"I want no more of your nostrums," said Lot. + +"Very well," said the doctor, replacing the bottles. "I would not +make out that certificate sooner than necessary--that is all." + +"Dose death and go to the root of the matter," said Lot. "Then you +won't sign this paper?" + +"No," replied the doctor, with a great emphasis of negation. + +"There is one thing you will do," said he. + +"What?" asked the doctor, suspiciously. + +"If I die within a year, to your truest belief, from any other cause +than this wound now in my side you will say so." + +"Of course I will do that," replied the doctor, staring at him. + +"And you will in such a case let this wound drop into oblivion, you +will hold your peace concerning it, 'forever after?'" + +"Of course I will." + +"Swear to it?" + +"I swear. But what in--" + +Lot smiled. "Some time, when you have leisure, write a treatise on +'Who killed the man?'" he said, as if to turn the subject, "and keep +going back to first causes. You'll find startling results; you may +decide that 'twas your duty to sign the paper." + +"I have no time for treatises," returned the doctor, gruffly. + +"You may trace the killing back to yourself." + +"I'm not afraid of it. Good-day." + +"Shake hands with me, doctor," pleaded Lot, with a curious change of +tone, "to show you bear no grudge for the breakfast you lost." + +The doctor stared a second, then went up to him with extended hand, +looking at him seriously. He thought Lot's illness had begun to +affect his mind. + +"Keep yourself quiet, and you may outlive the best of us," he said, +soothingly, as if to a child or a woman, shook Lot's lean hand +kindly, repeated his good-day, and was gone. + +Lot waited until he heard the outer door close. Then he tinkled his +bell for Margaret Bean. "When are they coming home?" he asked, +shortly, when she stood beside him. + +"His mother said she was expectin' of 'em Saturday." + +"Get my clothes out of the closet, will you," said Lot. + +"You ain't a-goin' to get up?" + +"Yes, I'm better; get the clothes." + +When Margaret Bean had laid the clothes out ready for him, and was +gone, Lot laid still a moment, reflecting, with his eyes on the +ceiling. He wished to cough, but with an effort he checked it, +gasping once or twice. "Saturday," he said, aloud. "To-day is +Wednesday--three days. Can I wait?" He paused; then as if answering +another self, he said, "No; I could die a thousand deaths in that +time. I can't wait." + +Lot Gordon got up, moving by inches, with infinite care and pains, +dressed himself, crawled out of his bedroom into his library, which +was adjoining, and sat down at his desk. Margaret Bean came timidly +to the door, and inquired if he did not want some breakfast. She had +to repeat her query three times, he was writing so busily, and then +he answered her "no" as if his thoughts were elsewhere. The old woman +hungrily eyed the paper upon which he was scribbling, and went away +with lingering backward glances. + +Lot Gordon, bending painfully over his desk, using his quill pen, +with wary motions of hand and wrist alone, that he might not jar his +wounded side, wrote a letter to the bride upon her wedding-journey. + +"Madelon," wrote Lot, "I pray you to pardon what I have done, and +what I am about to do. The danger of blood-guiltiness and death have +I brought upon you, and I now save you in the only way I know. I pray +you, when you read this, and know what I have done, that you think of +me with what charity you may, and that the love which caused the deed +may be its saving grace." + +Lot sat looking at what he had written for a moment, then tore it up, +and wrote again: + +"Madelon,--Alive I claimed nothing, dead I claim your memory, for the +sake of the love for which I died." + +And, after a moment, tore up that also. + +And then he wrote again, with quivering lips, yet breathing +guardedly: + +"Madelon,--The love that was set betwixt man and woman that the race +might not die is one love, but there is another. That have I found +and found through you, and bless you for it, though death be needful +to its keeping. There is another birth than that of the flesh, +through this so great love, which can upon itself beget immortality +of love unto the understanding of all which is above. A greater end +of love than the life of worlds there is, which is love itself. That +end have I attained through this great love in my own soul which you +have shown me, else should I have never known it there, and died so, +having lived to myself alone, and been no true lover. + + "Lot Gordon." + +And hesitated, reading it over; but at length tore that into shreds, +and wrote yet again: + +"Dear Child,--I pray you when I am gone that you wear the pretty +gowns and the trinkets which I offered you once, for I would fain +give you for your happiness more than my poor life." + +Tears of self-pity fell from Lot's eyes as he wrote the last; then he +laughed scornfully at himself, and tore that up. "Self dies hard," +said he. + +He wrote no more to Madelon, but now to Burr: + +"Dear Cousin," he wrote, "I have this day discovered that my life is +in imminent danger from the wound. If my death comes in that wise +there will be trouble. I take the only way to save her, but I pray +you, upon your honor, that you do not let her know, for even your +love cannot sweeten her life fully for her if she knows; for love has +taught me the heart of this woman. To you alone, for the sake of the +honor of our blood, which has never been shed by our own hands +before, I disclose this; for I would be set right in the eyes of one +man when I am dead." + +Lot Gordon pondered long over that; but finally tore up that as he +had torn the others, and gathered up all the fragments and crawled +across the room with them, and threw them on the hearthfire. + +Then, leaving them blazing there, he returned to his desk, and wrote: + +"_To all whom it may concern, or to all whom in their own estimation +it may concern, this:_ + +"I, Lot Gordon, of Ware Centre, being weary of life, which is a +dream, have resolved to force the waking. Having once before +attempted in vain to take my life, I now attempt it again, and this +time not in vain, for my hand has grown skilful with practice. I take +my life because of no wrong done me by man or woman, nor because of +any vain love; I take it solely because my days upon this earth being +numbered through my distress of the lungs, I have not the courage to +see death approach by inches, and prefer to meet him at one bound. I +have lived unto myself, with no man accountable, and I die unto +myself, with no man accountable; and this is the truth with my last +breath. + + "Lot Gordon." + +This last Lot folded neatly and addressed it "To my fellow-townsmen," +and laid it in a conspicuous place on his desk, and then wrote on +another sheet and put that in his pocket. Then he opened a drawer of +the desk, and took out all the trinkets which he had offered Madelon, +in their pretty cases, and with them in his hands crept out of the +room, and up-stairs, into the chamber which he had caused to be +decked out so newly and grandly when he had thought to marry her. +There was a great carven chest in a corner of the room, which Lot +unlocked, and took from thence all those rich fabrics which he had +bought for Madelon. And then he laid them all--the silken stuffs and +plumes and fine linens and jewels--out on the great bed, under the +grand canopy, and placed on the top the sheet of paper on which he +had last written, "For Madelon Gordon." + +Margaret Bean had listened when Lot climbed the stairs. She heard him +when he came down again, entered his library, and shut the door. She +waited a long time. For some reason which she did not herself know +she felt cold with terror. She would not let her husband leave her +alone in the kitchen for a moment. At last, when it was nearly noon, +she bade him keep close at her heels, and went to the library door +and knocked, and when no answer came, knocked again and again and +again, louder and louder and louder. Then she made her husband open +the door, with fierce urgings, and peered around his shoulder into +the room. Then she gave one great shriek, and caught the old man by +the arm with a frantic clutch, and was out of the house with him and +screaming up the street. + +Saturday morning Burr and Madelon came riding into the village. As +they passed up the street everybody whom they met saluted them with a +manner which had in it something respectful, apologetic, and solemn. +The lovers felt no wonder at such return of cordiality, seeing in +everything but reflections of their own moods, and knew not what it +meant until they reached home. + +Then Elvira Gordon, meeting them at the door, told them that Lot was +dead by his own hand, by a knife-thrust which crossed the old wound +in his side; and she dwelt upon the reason for his deed: that he had +been slowly dying from the disease of his lungs, and had not the +courage to die by inches, which reason now all the town believed, +since the doctor had said no word in contradiction, and never would, +being mindful of his oath. + +Madelon listened, white and still, saying not a word; and she said +nothing when, up in their chamber, whither she went to take off her +bonnet, Burr, who had followed, took her in his arms, and they stood +together, looking at each other and trembling. Knowing not, and never +to know, the whole which he had done for them, they yet knew enough. +Suddenly, in the light of their own love another greater showed +revealed; and each exalted the image of Lot Gordon above the other, +and was acquaint with the spirit of what he had written and kept +back; for love that so outspeeds self and death needs no speech nor +written sign to prove its being. + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Madelon, by Mary E. 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