blood in her ears grew faint. She fell down on her knees beside him.
"Have I killed you, Burr?" she said, and bent her face down to
his--and it was not Burr, but Lot Gordon!

The white, peaked face smiled up at her out of the snow. "You haven't
killed me if I die, since you took me for Burr," whispered Lot
Gordon.

"Are you much hurt?"

"I--don't know. The knife has gone a little way into my side. It has
not reached my heart, but that was hurt unto death already by life,
so this matters not."

Madelon felt along his side and hit the handle of the clasp-knife,
firmly fixed.

"Don't try to draw it out--you cannot," said Lot, and his pain forced
a groan from him. "I'll live, if I can, till the wound is healed for
the sake of your peace. I'd be content to die of it, since you gave
it in vengeance for another man's kiss, if it were not for you. But
they shall never know--they shall never--know." Lot's voice died
away in a faint murmur between his parted lips; his eyes stared up
with no meaning in them at the wintry stars.

Madelon ran back on the road to the village, taking great leaps
through the snow, straining her eyes ahead. Now and then she cried
out hoarsely, as if she really saw some one, "Hullo! hullo!" At the
curve of the road she turned a headlong corner and ran roughly
against a man who was hurrying towards her; and this time it was Burr