“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. “If,” he said, brokenly, looking at Burr with the eyes of one who awaits a mortal blow, “you want—Madelon—it is not—too late. She—I know how she feels—towards you.”
Burr turned white, as he stared at him. “She—she was going to marry you!” he said with a sneer.
“Do—you know why?”
Burr shook his head, still staring at his cousin.
“It was the price of—your—acquittal.”
Burr did not move his eyes from Lot's face. He looked as if he were reading something there writ in startling characters, against which his whole soul leaped up in incredulity. “My God, I see!” he groaned out slowly, at length. And then he said, sharply, “But—you were going to marry her. Why did you give her up?”
“I loved her,” Lot said, simply. His white face worked.
“But now—you—ask me to—”
“I love her!” Lot said again, with a gasp.
Burr strode forward, quite up to his cousin, and grasped his hand warmly for the first time in his life. “Before the Lord, Lot,” he said, huskily, “'twas you, and not me, she should have fancied in the first of it.”