"No, he won't hang for what I did while I draw the breath of life.
I've got the strength of ten in me. You don't know me, if I am your
daughter." Madelon freed her bridle with a quick movement, and the
mare flew forward into the barn.

David Hautville stood looking after her in utter fury and
bewilderment. Her last words rang in his ears and seemed true to him.
He felt as if he did not know his own daughter. This awakening and
lashing into action, by the terrible pressure of circumstances, of
strange ancestral traits which he had himself transmitted was beyond
his simple comprehension. He shook his head with a fierce
helplessness and went into the barn.

"Go in and get the supper," he ordered, "and _I_'ll take care of the
mare."

As Madelon came out of the stall he grasped her roughly by the arm
and peered sharply into her face. The thought seized him that she
must surely not be in her right mind--that Burr's treatment of her
and his danger had turned her brain. "Be you crazy, Madelon?" he
asked, in his straightforward simplicity, and there was an accent of
doubt and pity in his voice.

"No, father," she replied, "I am not crazy. Let me go."

She broke away from him and was out of the barn door, but suddenly
she turned and came running back. The sudden softness in his voice
had stirred the woman in her to weakness. She went close to her
father, and threw up her arms around his great neck, and clung to
him, and sobbed as if she would sob her soul away, and pleaded with