But her haste was of no avail, for he came straight down his opposite terraces, and met her when she reached the road.
She would have pushed past then, but he stood squarely before her.
"Madelon, can't I speak with you a minute ?" he pleaded.

Madelon saw, without seeming to look, that Burr's handsome face was white as death and haggard.
"Are you sick ?" she asked, suddenly.

"Why do you look so?
What is the matter with you ?" and she put a half-bitter, half-anxiously compassionate weight upon the _you_.
"I believe I am going mad," Burr groaned, with the quick grasp of a man at the pity of the woman he loves.

"Oh, Madelon!" He held out his hands towards her like a child, but she stood back from him, and looked straight at him with sharp questioning in her eyes.
"Do you mean--" she began; then stopped, and questioned him with her eyes again.

She was seized with the belief, which filled her at once with agony and an impulse of fierce protection like that of a mother defending her young with her own wounded bosom, that Burr had had a falling out with Dorothy.
"Oh, Madelon!" Burr said again, and then he could say no more for very shame and honor.