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?”