moved softly away a few steps, holding her skirts clear of
the vines. Then she paused and looked again, and was away again. Her
face was resolute and wary, as if she saw something which she feared
and loathed, and yet would brave. Then she went close to Lot, and
stood still over him a minute.

"Lot," she said.

He looked up at her, wonderingly. "Are you sick, Madelon?" he cried,
and would have risen, but she motioned him back and spoke, turning
her face away the while.

"Once I asked Burr to give me the kiss that I would have killed him
for," said she, in a voice so sharpened by her stress of spirit that
it might have come out of the flames of martyrdom. "Now I ask you to
give me the kiss that I almost took your life for."

"Madelon!"

"It is all I can do to make amends," said she. Then she looked full
at him, and did not shrink when she met his eyes, though her face
grew white before the mad longing in them.

Lot stood up and leaned towards her, and she stood waiting. Then he
threw out his hands, as if he would push her back, and turned away.
"You owe me no amends," he said, hoarsely. "The wound that you gave
me was my just desert for striving to take what you were not willing
to give."

"Your life is your life," said she, steadily, "and I almost took it
away from you. I would do this in token of repentance for that and
whatever other harm I have done you unwittingly."

"You owe me no amends, and I will take none," said Lot, again.

Then he faced about towards her, and she started and looked at him,
wondering and half in awe, for suddenly the love in the heart of the
man showed itself in his face like a light, and it was almost as if
she saw, unbelieving and denying, her own transfigured image in his
eyes.

"Good-bye, Madelon," said Lot.

"Good-bye," she returned, faintly, and looked at him for the first
time in all her life without the thought of Burr between them.

But that Lot did not know, and stood a moment gazing at her as a man
gazes at one beloved under the shadow of long parting, striving to
gain possession of somewhat to hold and cherish aside from the
conditions of the flesh. Then he said good-bye again, and went away,
with that soft winding glide of his through the underbrush which he
might have learned from the wild dwellers in the woods, and was out
of sight through the violet glooms of the firs.

Chapter XXVIII

The night before Madelon was married, as if by some tacit
unders