“Lot, I must go!”

“Listen, Madelon; you must listen.  When I have taken my solitary walks in the woods and pried into the secrets of the little wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—­I cannot tell you how, but you were, Madelon.  There was a meaning of you in every bird-call and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed things across the open.  Every white alder-bush in the spring raised you up anew before me to madden me with vain longing, and every red sumach in the fall.  When I have sat here alone every book I have opened has had in it a meaning of you which the writer knew not of.  You are in all my forethoughts and my memories and my imaginations.  The future has your face, and the past.  My whole world is made up of you and my vain hunger.  Oh, love, and not toil, is the curse of man!”

“You knew about Burr,” Madelon said, in a quiet, agitated voice.  “Why—­did you?”

Lot gave a sharp cry, as if he had been wounded anew.  “Oh,” he cried, “you are blind, blind, blind—­a woman is born blind to love!  If I had had the face and the body of him it would have been me you would have turned to, Madelon.  Don’t you know? can’t you see?  He has been false to you, he cares no more for you.  But if he had?  In the end it is love and love alone that sweetens life, and what could his love be to mine?”

Madelon turned away again.  “I can’t stand here any longer, Lot,” she said, and moved towards the door.

But Lot called her piteously:  “Madelon, come back!  If you have any mercy, come back!”

She stood irresolute, frowning; then she went back.  “What is it?” she asked, impatiently.

“Madelon, kiss me once.”

“I can’t—­I can’t!  Don’t ask that of me, Lot.”

“Madelon, once!”

Madelon bent over him, keeping her body stiffly aloof, and kissed him on his hollow forehead.  Lot closed his eyes and smiled like a contented child; then suddenly he opened them upon Madelon, and the look in them was not a child’s.  She shrank away with a strong shudder, flushing with anger and shame, and made resolutely for the door again.  She looked back and spoke out sharply to him, with her hand on the latch:  “Mind you do not say one word about—­what I said I’d do, until the last.”  Then she went out, flinging to the door quickly lest she hear Lot’s voice again.

When she got home there was no one there.  Eugene had not returned.  She went about preparing dinner as usual; it was on the table when the men, all except Eugene, came home, and none of them dreamed she had left the house.  They inquired where Eugene was, and she replied that she did not know.  They did not suspect that she had taken advantage of this lack of guardianship, and yet there was something unwonted in her manner which led them to look at each other furtively when they first noticed it.  The perfect