"Poor girl! poor girl!" he kept whispering; but, softly caressing as his voice was, his eyes, staring over his sister's head at the fire, got a fierce and fiercer look; for he was thinking of Burr Gordon and cursing him in his heart for all this.

"Good Lord, Madelon, can't you put that fellow out of your head ?" he cried out, sharply, all at once.
Then Madelon hushed her sobs, with a stern grip of her will upon her quivering nerves, and raised herself up and away from him.

"That has nothing to do with this," she said, coldly.

"Let me go now, Eugene." But Eugene held her strongly with a hand on either arm, and scanned her keenly with his indignant eyes.

"He is at the root of the whole matter," said he, "and you know it.