If one sat moodily by and moved out of her way without a word while Madelon prepared a meal, the others knew what it meant.

They also knew well the meaning of each other's glances at her, and sudden lowering of brows.

Madelon herself did not know.

When she had come home that Sunday night, and announced that she was not going to be married at all, she had not understood the sharp questioning, and then the stern quiet that followed upon it.
She had told them simply that Lot said that his lungs were gone; that he had ascertained the fact himself through his own knowledge of medicine; that he could only live a wreck of a man, if at all, and, knowing it was so, had made up his mind that he would not marry.
Lot had indeed told her so, and had made her believe it, doing away with much of the force of his giving her up for the sake of his love.
It is difficult in any case for one to understand fully the love to which he cannot respond, for involuntarily the heart averts itself from it like an ear or an eye, and misses it like the highest notes of music and colors of the spectrum.
Madelon had stared dumbly at Lot when he told her she was free, and for a moment indeed had struggled with a consciousness which would have stirred her at least into pity and gratitude and remorse, which she had never known, had not Lot recovered himself and spoken again in his old manner.

He tapped himself on his hollow chest.