“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.”