"If he hadn't treated you so, it wouldn't ever have happened." "He did it to save me," said Madelon, as if to herself; "it's worth all I'm going to do to save him." She sat down again, and took up her wedding-dress, and resumed sewing.

Richard stood looking at her a minute; then he got his gun off the hooks where he kept it, put on his fur cap, and went out.
Madelon sat and sewed, in a broad slant of wintry sunshine, for an hour longer.

Then a shadow passed suddenly athwart the floor, the door opened, and Burr Gordon was in the room.

He came straight across to her, but she sat still and drew her needle through her wedding-silk.
"Madelon!" he cried out, "is this true that I have just heard?
Madelon!"-- Burr Gordon's handsome face was white as death, and he breathed hard, as if he had been running--"Madelon! tell me, for God's sake, is it--true ?" "Yes," said Madelon.

She took another stitch.