et Bean recoiled a little when she looked at her. "He's up,"
said she, backing before her, half as if she were afraid. "I guess
you can walk right in."

Madelon went into the sitting-room, and Lot's face confronted her at
once, white and peaked, with hollow blue eyes lit, as of old, with a
mocking intelligence of life.

He was sunken amid multifold wrappings in a great chair before the
fire, with a great leathern-bound book on his knees. Beside him was a
little stand with writing-paper thereon, and sealing-wax and a
candle, a quill pen and an inkstand. All the room was lined with
books, and was full of the musty smell of them.

Madelon went straight up to Lot and spoke out with no word of
greeting. "I have sent your answer," said she. "I will keep my
promise, but have you thought well of what you do, Lot Gordon?"

Lot looked up at her and smiled, and the smile gave a curiously
gentle look to his face, in spite of the sharp light in his eyes.

"The thought has been my meat and my drink, my medicine and my breath
of life," said he.

"If I were a man I would rather--take a snake to my breast than a
woman who held me as one--"

"Two parallel lines can sooner meet than a woman know the heart of a
man. What do I care so I hold you to mine?"

Madelon stood farther away from him, but her eyes did not fall before
his.

"Why did you lie" said she. "You knew I stabbed you, and not
yourself. You are a liar, Lot Gordon."

But Lot still smiled as he answered her. "However it may be with
other men, no happening has come to me since I set foot upon this
earth that I brought not upon myself by my own deeds. The hand that
set the knife in my side was my own, and I have not lied."

"You have lied. Tell them the truth."

"I have told the truth that lies at the bottom of the well."

"Call them all in now, and tell them--I--did it, I--"

Lot Gordon raised himself a little, and looked at her with the
mocking expression gone suddenly from his face. "What good do you
think it would do if I did, Madelon?" he said, with a strange sadness
in his voice.

She looked at him.

"I shall not die of the wound. You can't escape me by prison or a
disgraceful death, and as for me, do you think it would make any
difference to me if all the village pointed at you, Madelon?"

Madelon looked at him as if she were frozen.

"All the way to be set loose from your promise is by your own
breaking it," said Lot.

"I will keep my promise," sa