d me if he loved me?"

Madelon looked at her. "You don't love him!" she cried out, sharply.
"You don't love him, and that's why. You don't love him, Dorothy
Fair!"

Dorothy flushed red and drew herself up with gentle stiffness. "You
cannot expect me to unveil my heart to you," said she.

"You have betrayed it," persisted Madelon. "You don't love him,
Dorothy Fair! Shame on you, after all!"

"What right have you to say that?" demanded Dorothy, and this time
with some show of anger.

"The right of another woman who does love him, and would save his
life," Madelon answered, fiercely. "The right of a woman who can love
more in an hour than such as you in a lifetime!"

"You--don't know--"

"I do know. You don't love him or you would not have distrusted him.
You would have made him tell you the truth. You would have flung your
arms around him, and you would not have let him go until he told you.
Did you do that? Answer me: did you do that?"

A great wave of red crept over Dorothy's face, but she replied, with
cold dignity: "I throw my arms around no man unbidden!"

"Unbidden!" repeated Madelon, and scorn seemed to sound in her voice
like the lash of a whip. She flung out the reins over the horse's
back, and they slipped along swiftly over the icy crust, and not
another word did she speak to Dorothy Fair all the way home.

Chapter X

When they entered Parson Fair's south yard there was a swift
disappearance of a dark face from a window, and the door was flung
open, and the grimly faithful servant-woman came forth and lifted
Dorothy out of the sleigh, crooning the while in tender and angry
gutturals. Poor Dorothy Fair shook like a white flower in a wind, for
beside the rigor of the cold, which seemed to pierce her very soul,
the chill of fever was still upon her. She chattered helplessly when
she tried to speak, and there were sobs in her throat. The black
woman half carried her into the house, and up-stairs to her own
chamber, where the hearth-fire was blazing bright. She covered her up
warm in bed, with a hot brick at her feet, and dosed her with warm
herb drinks, and coddled her, until, after some piteous weeping, she
fell asleep.

But for Madelon Hautville there was no rest and no sleep. She felt
not the cold, and if she had fever in her veins the fierce disregard
of her straining spirit was beyond it. No knowledge of her body at
all had Madelon Hautville, no knowledge of anything on earth except
he