She looked at him with a curious expression of pity struggling with loathing, as she might have looked at some wounded reptile.
"Well, I am here," she said, in a harsh voice.
"All my life my heart has had nothing, and now what it has it has not," moaned Lot, as if it had been to his mother.

He looked up at her with his hollow blue eyes swimming in tears.

He seemed for a minute like a little ailing boy appealing for sympathy, and the latent motherhood in the girl responded to that.
"You know I cannot help that, Lot," she said.

"You know how you forced me into this to save the one I do love." "Oh, Madelon, can't you love me ?" She shrank away from him and shook her head, but still her dark eyes were soft upon his face.
"Does not love for you count anything?
I love you more than he--I do, Madelon." "It is no use talking, I can never love you, Lot," she said, but gently.
"It ought to count.

Love ought to count, dear.