“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.