When he looked at Burr again he was so white that his cousin started.

"Are you sick ?" he cried, with harsh concern.
Lot smiled with stiff lips.

"Only with the life-sickness that smites the child when it enters the world, and makes it weep with its first breath," he answered.
"If you want to say anything to me, Lot, talk like a man, and not a book," Burr cried out, with another step towards the door; and yet he spoke kindly enough, for there was something in his cousin's face which aroused his pity.
"It is not--" began Lot, and stopped, and caught his breath.

Burr watched him half alarmed; he looked in mortal agony.

Lot clutched the carven edge of the mantel-shelf, then loosened his fingers.