ecret Told

In the shaded seclusion of her room, buried face down deep among the
soft cushions on her couch, Madeline Hammond lay prostrate and quivering
under the outrage she had suffered.

The afternoon wore away; twilight fell; night came; and then Madeline
rose to sit by the window to let the cool wind blow upon her hot face.
She passed through hours of unintelligible shame and impotent rage and
futile striving to reason away her defilement.

The train of brightening stars seemed to mock her with their
unattainable passionless serenity. She had loved them, and now she
imagined she hated them and everything connected with this wild,
fateful, and abrupt West.

She would go home.

Edith Wayne had been right; the West was no place for Madeline Hammond.
The decision to go home came easily, naturally, she thought, as the
result of events. It caused her no mental strife. Indeed, she fancied
she felt relief. The great stars, blinking white and cold over the dark
crags, looked down upon her, and, as always, after she had watched
them for a while they enthralled her. "Under Western stars," she mused,
thinking a little scornfully of the romantic destiny they had blazed for
her idle sentiment. But they were beautiful; they were speaking; they
were mocking; they drew her. "Ah!" she sighed. "It will not be so very
easy to leave them, after all."

Madeline closed and darkened the window. She struck a light. It was
necessary to tell the anxious servants who knocked that she was well and
required nothing. A soft step on the walk outside arrested her. Who was
there--Nels or Nick Steele or Stillwell? Who shared the guardianship
over her, now that Monty Price was dead and that other--that savage--?
It was monstrous and unfathomable that she regretted him.

The light annoyed her. Complete darkness fitted her strange mood. She
retired and tried to compose herself to sleep. Sleep for her was not a
matter of will. Her cheeks burned so hotly that she rose to bathe
them. Cold water would not alleviate this burn, and then, despairing
of forgetfulness, she lay down again with a shameful gratitude for the
cloak of night. Stewart's kisses were there, scorching her lips, her
closed eyes, her swelling neck. They penetrated deeper and deeper into
her blood, into her heart, into her soul--the terrible farewell kisses
of a passionate, hardened man. Despite his baseness, he had loved her.

Late in the night Madeline fell asleep. In the mornin