a dove. Had I looked over my shoulder I could have seen you, but I
looked not lest the power of flight might be in you like the dove."

"I shall go away if you talk like this. I will not stay here and
listen to it; you know I was not here," said Madelon, and she paled a
little, for she almost thought, used to his fanciful talk though she
were, that Lot had gone mad.

"We walked towards the sun," persisted Lot, "but you were in my
shadow and needed not to cast down your eyes. I saw some red flowers,
but I did not pick them for you, and I heard you stop and break the
stems as you came after. When we reached the shade of the firs there
I sat down, but I left the space there, where the needles are
smoothest and thickest, for you, and there you sat too, all day."

"Lot Gordon!"

"You need not mind, Madelon, for all day I looked not over my
shoulder once. I saw not your face, nor touched your lips, nor your
hand, nor even the fold of your dress. I harmed you not, even in my
dreams, dear."

Madelon, standing quite free of the clinging blackberry vines, held
up her dark head like an empress, and looked at him. In truth she
felt little pity for Lot Gordon then, for she liked not being made to
follow other than Burr even in a man's dreams. Still, when she spoke
it was not unkindly, for in spite of this jealousy of herself for
Burr, and in spite of her inability to understand such worship of
herself, when she was spent in worship of another, she remembered how
she had nearly taken the life of this man, and how he had striven to
shield her, though against her will, and on hard and selfish
conditions, and how he had at last sacrificed himself to set her
free.

"Lot," said she, "there must be no more of this. I am almost your
cousin's wife. You have no right." And then she repeated it
passionately. "I say you have no right to love me like this, if I do
not love you, Lot Gordon. I will have no other man but Burr think me
at his heels. I will follow him till the day of my death, but no
other. I would only have married you to save his life--you know that.
You know I never loved you. You have no right."

"The right of love is every man's who sets not himself before it,"
returned Lot, with sad dignity. "I will not yield that even for love
of you, Madelon; but myself shall be pushed yet farther out of sight,
I promise you, and you shall be pestered no more, child. Go on with
your berry-picking."

A great mound of rock uplifte