d itself like the swelling crouch of
some fossil animal among the sweet ferns and the wild scramble of
vines. Lot sank down upon it panting for breath. He leaned his head
wearily forward between his hands, his elbows resting on his knees.

Madelon looked at him hesitatingly; she opened her mouth as if to
speak, then was silent. She looked at the high vines, black with
fruit, then at the field beyond, as if half minded to go away and
leave them.

Finally she fell to picking again without a word. Lot coughed once,
but he did not speak. Madelon kept glancing at him as she picked.
Compunction and pity softened more and more her fiery heart, the more
so since she felt the guilt of happiness in the face of the woe of
another upon her. Finally she said, with that fond reversion to the
little homely truths and waysides of life with which the feminine
mind strives often to comfort, that she would put up for him a jug of
her blackberry cordial, and furthermore that she hoped his cough was
better. She said it with half-constrained kindness, not looking up
from her berry-picking; but Lot lifted his head and thanked her and
said the cough was nearly cured, with eagerness to respond to grace,
like a child who has been chidden.

Then he watched her with bright eyes as she picked, his breath coming
hard and quick. "Madelon!" he said, and stopped.

"What, Lot?"

"You remember--the gewgaws which I--showed you, Madelon--the feathers
and ribbons and satins, and the other things? You cared not for them
then. Will you have them now, for your wedding-gift?"

"No, Lot," said Madelon, quickly. "I thank you, but I cannot take
them; I have enough."

"Why not?"

"I have enough."

"There is no need for you to tell me why," said Lot. "A woman like
you would almost veil herself from her own eyes for the sake of a
lover, so great is her jealousy. The thoughts and the dreams with
which I bought the gewgaws profane them in your eyes while I am
alive."

"I do not need them, and I cannot take them, Lot," said Madelon,
steadily.

Lot said no more. He leaned his head upon his hands again. Madelon
could hear his panting breath. She resolved that she would go away
across the fields, down the road a piece, to another berry patch that
she knew of. Still she did not go. One of those impulses which seem
to come from authority outside one's self, or else from some hidden
springs of motion which we know not of, had seized her. She looked at
Lot and