“Lot, I must go!”
“Listen, Madelon; you must listen. When I have taken my solitary walks in the woods and pried into the secrets of the little wild things that live there in order to turn my mind from my own musing, I found always, always, that you were in them—I cannot tell you how, but you were, Madelon. There was a meaning of you in every bird-call and flutter of wings and race of wild four-footed things across the open. Every white alder-bush in the spring raised you up anew before me to madden me with vain longing, and every red sumach in the fall. When I have sat here alone every book I have opened has had in it a meaning of you which the writer knew not of. You are in all my forethoughts and my memories and my imaginations. The future has your face, and the past. My whole world is made up of you and my vain hunger. Oh, love, and not toil, is the curse of man!”
“You knew about Burr,” Madelon said, in a quiet, agitated voice. “Why—did you?”
Lot gave a sharp cry, as if he had been wounded anew. “Oh,” he cried, “you are blind, blind, blind—a woman is born blind to love! If I had had the face and the body of him it would have been me you would have turned to, Madelon. Don't you know? can't you see? He has been false to you, he cares no more for you. But if he had? In the end it is love and love alone that sweetens life, and what could his love be to mine?”
Madelon turned away again. “I can't stand here any longer, Lot,” she said, and moved towards the door.
But Lot called her piteously: “Madelon, come back! If you have any mercy, come back!”
She stood irresolute, frowning; then she went back. “What is it?” she asked, impatiently.
“Madelon, kiss me once.”
“I can't—I can't! Don't ask that of me, Lot.”
“Madelon, once!”