ied
kindness at the girl.

"I trust you are not ill," he said, without answering her question as
to whether she might see Dorothy.

Madelon did not act as if she heard what he said. "Can I see your
daughter, sir?" she repeated. She cast an anxious glance over her
shoulder for fear Eugene might appear in the road.

Parson Fair still eyed her with perplexity. "I believe Dorothy is ill
in her chamber," he said, hesitatingly. "I do not know--"

Madelon gave a dry sob. "I beg you to let me see her for a minute,
sir," she gasped out, "for the love of God. It is life and death!"

Parson Fair looked shocked and half alarmed. He had not had to do
with women like this, who spoke with such fervor of passion. His
womankind had swathed all their fiercer human emotions with shy
decorum and stern modesty, as Turkish women swathe their faces with
veils.

Madelon, still under the fear of Eugene, pressed inside the door as
she spoke, and he stood aside half involuntarily. "I beg you to let
me see her," she repeated. She looked at the stately wind of the
stairs up to the second floor, as if she were minded to ascend
without bidding to Dorothy's chamber.

"She is ill in her chamber," the Parson said again, with a kind of
forbidding helplessness.

"I would see her only for a minute. I beg you to let me, sir. It is
life and death, I tell you--it is life and death!"

Whether Parson Fair motioned her to ascend, or whether he simply
stood aside to allow her to pass, he never knew, but Madelon was up
the winding stairs with a swirl of her cloak, as if the wind had
caught it. Parson Fair followed her, and motioned her to the south
front chamber, and was about to rap on the door when it was flung
open violently, and the great black princess stood there, scowling at
them.

"I have a guest here for your mistress," said Parson Fair; but the
black woman blocked his way, speaking fast in her wrathful gibberish.

However, at a stately gesture from her master she stood aside, and he
held the door open, and Madelon entered. "You had better not remain
long, to tire her," said the parson, and closed the door. Immediately
the uncouth savage voice was raised high again, and quelled by the
parson's calm tone. Then there was a great settling of a heavy body
close to the threshold. The black woman had thrown herself at the
sill of her darling's door, to keep watch, like a faithful dog.

Madelon Hautville, when she entered Dorothy Fair's room, had