“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.