“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.