selessly.

This tide of memory rolled over Madeline again and again, and gradually
lost its power and faded. All distress left her, and she felt herself
drifting. How black the room was--as black with her eyes open as it was
when they were shut! And the silence--it was like a cloak. There was
absolutely no sound. She was in another world from that which she knew.
She thought of this fair-haired Florence and of Alfred; and, wondering
about them, she dropped to sleep.

When she awakened the room was bright with sunlight. A cool wind blowing
across the bed caused her to put her hands under the blanket. She was
lazily and dreamily contemplating the mud walls of this little room when
she remembered where she was and how she had come there.

How great a shock she had been subjected to was manifest in a sensation
of disgust that overwhelmed her. She even shut her eyes to try and blot
out the recollection. She felt that she had been contaminated.

Presently Madeline Hammond again awoke to the fact she had learned the
preceding night--that there were emotions to which she had heretofore
been a stranger. She did not try to analyze them, but she exercised her
self-control to such good purpose that by the time she had dressed she
was outwardly her usual self. She scarcely remembered when she had found
it necessary to control her emotions. There had been no trouble, no
excitement, no unpleasantness in her life. It had been ordered for
her--tranquil, luxurious, brilliant, varied, yet always the same.

She was not surprised to find the hour late, and was going to make
inquiry about her brother when a voice arrested her. She recognized Miss
Kingsley's voice addressing some one outside, and it had a sharpness she
had not noted before.

"So you came back, did you? Well, you don't look very proud of yourself
this mawnin'. Gene Stewart, you look like a coyote."

"Say, Flo if I am a coyote I'm not going to sneak," he said.

"What 'd you come for?" she demanded.

"I said I was coming round to take my medicine."

"Meaning you'll not run from Al Hammond? Gene, your skull is as thick
as an old cow's. Al will never know anything about what you did to his
sister unless you tell him. And if you do that he'll shoot you. She
won't give you away. She's a thoroughbred. Why, she was so white last
night I thought she'd drop at my feet, but she never blinked an eyelash.
I'm a woman, Gene Stewart and if I couldn't feel like Miss Hammond I
know