Small store of honey did she bear in her heart when she set out to
obey Lot's call. She hurried along, indeed, with her cloak flying out
at either side, like red wings in the south wind, but not from
eagerness to see her lover. She was in constant dread lest she meet
Burr on the road; but she gained Lot's house without seeing him or
knowing that his miserable, jealous eyes watched her from an opposite
window.

Burr was up in his chamber when Madelon went into his cousin's house.
Presently he went down-stairs, where his mother was, with a face so
full of the helpless appeal of agony that she looked at him as she
used to do when he came in hurt from play.

"What is the matter, Burr, are you sick?" she said, in her quiet
voice. She was sitting in a rocking-chair in the sun with her
knitting-work. She swayed on gently as she spoke, and her long,
delicate fingers still slipped the yarn over the needle.

"Yes, I am sick, mother; I am sick to death," Burr groaned out. Then
he went down on the floor at his mother's feet, and hid his face in
her lap, as he had used to do when he was a child in trouble. Mrs.
Gordon's stern repose of manner had never seemed to repel any
demonstration of her son's. Now she continued to knit above his head,
but he apparently felt no lack of sympathy in her.

She asked no more questions, but waited for him to speak. "She's just
gone in there," he half sobbed out, presently. "Oh, mother, what
shall I do--what shall I do?"

"You'll have to get used to it," said his mother. "You'll have to
make up your mind to it, Burr."

"Mother, I can't! Oh, God, I can't see her every day there with him.
Mother, we've got to sell out and move away. You'll be willing to,
won't you? Won't you, mother?"

"You forget Dorothy. She can't leave the town where her father is."

"I wish I could forget Dorothy in honor!" Burr cried out.

"You can't," said his mother, "and there's an end of it."

"I know it," said Burr. He got up and stood looking moodily out of
the window.

"You know," said his mother, still knitting, "how I have felt from
the very first about Madelon Hautville. I never approved of her for a
wife for you; I approve of her still less now, after her violent
conduct and her consent to marry Lot, whom she cannot care for.
Still, since you feel as you do about it, I should be glad to have
you marry her, if such a thing could be done with any show of honor;
but it cannot. You know that as well as I.