o go away he called her back,
and called her back, and when she came had nothing to say, until she
lost patience and went home.

And the day after that he sent again, and there was a great carved
comb for her in the desk drawer, and some rose-colored satin shoes;
but she thrust them back indignantly. "Understand once for all, Lot
Gordon," said she, "you I will take, as I would take my death,
because I have pledged my word; but your presents I will not take."

"I have been buying them and treasuring them, against the time you
would have them, for years," pleaded Lot.

"I tell you I will not have them," said she.

That day, as the day before, he called her back again and again, and
looked at her as if he had something on his mind which he would and
could not say; and she went home at last resolved not to go again
until she was obliged to for the marriage ceremony.

The next day was Sunday, and Madelon went to meeting and sang, as
usual. Burr was not there, but pretty Dorothy was, and looked up at
Madelon with a kind of wondering alarm when she sang. Madelon had the
heart of one who sings her death-song, and there was something of it
in her face that morning. Unconsciously people looked past her, when
her voice rang out, to see some dead wall of horror at her back to
account for the strange tones in it and the look in her face. She had
never looked handsomer, however, than she did that day. Her cheeks
had the bloom of roses, and her black eyes seemed to give out their
own light, like stars.

She held up her head like a queen as she sang, and her wonderful
voice sounded through and beyond the viols and violins, and all the
other singing voices. The agony within her was great to penetrate the
consciousness of others through this fair triumphant mask.

Madelon looked better than her rival that morning. Dorothy sat, as
usual, daintily clad in her Sabbath silks and swan's-downs, with a
sweet atmosphere as of a flower around her; but her delicate color
had faded, and her blue eyes looked as if she had been weeping and
had not slept. She never glanced once at Eugene Hautville up in the
singing-seats; but sometimes he looked at her, and then her face
quivered under his eyes.

That noon Lot Gordon sent again for Madelon, but this time she
refused to go. "Tell him I am busy and can't come," she told Margaret
Bean's husband, who had brought the note. The old man went off,
muttering over her message to himself lest he forget