her mad or guilty. A
suspicious imagination had Margaret Bean, and Madelon would have
found in her a much readier belief than in others.

"I've got to see him, whether he's able or not," said Madelon.

"The doctor said--"

"I'm going to see him!"

Madelon pushed roughly in past the smooth apron and ran through the
entry to Lot's room, with the housekeeper staring after her in a
helpless ruffle of indignation.

"She's gone in there," she told her husband, who appeared in the
kitchen door, dish-towel in hand. Margaret Bean's husband always
washed the dishes and performed all the irresponsible domestic duties
of the establishment. He was commonly adjudged not as smart as his
wife, and little store was set by his counsels. Indeed, at times the
only dignity of his man's estate which seemed left to this obediently
pottering old body was the masculine pronoun which necessarily
expressed him still. However, even in that the undisturbed use was
not allowed. "Margaret Bean's husband" was usually substituted for
"He," and nothing left of him but the superior feminine element
feebly qualified by masculinity.

Margaret Bean's husband's name was Zenas, but scarcely anybody knew
it, and he had almost forgotten it himself through never being
addressed by it. Margaret herself spoke of her husband as "Him," but
she never called him anything, except sometimes "You." However, he
always knew when she meant him, and there was no need of
specification.

Now he half thought she was appealing to his masculine authority from
her bewildered air. He stiffened his meek old back. "Want me to go in
there and order her out?"

"_You!_ Go back in there and finish them dishes."

Margaret Bean's husband went back into the kitchen, and Margaret
followed Madelon with a sly, determined air, to Lot's room.

The great square northwest room was warm, but the frost had not yet
melted from the window-panes. The room looked full of hard white
lines of frost, and starched curtains, and high wainscoting; but the
hardest white lines of all were in Lot Gordon's face, sunken sharply
in his pillows, showing between the stiff dimity slants of his
bed-hangings as in a tent door. He looked already like a dead man,
except for his eyes. It seemed as if the life in them could never die
when they saw Madelon. She bent over him, darkening the light.

"Speak now!" said she.

Lot Gordon looked up at her.

"I tell you, speak! I will not bear this any longer. I