Madelon Part 4

"I think I--have killed him," said she, and pulled him on faster.

"And you meant to kill me?"

"Yes, I did."

"I wish to G.o.d you had!" Burr cried out, with a sudden fierce anger at himself and her; and now he hurried on faster than she.

Lot was quite motionless when they reached him. Burr threw himself down in the snow and leaned his ear to his cousin's heart. Madelon stood over them, panting. Suddenly a merry roulade of whistling broke the awful stillness. Two men were coming down the road whistling "Roy's Wife of Alidivalloch" as clearly soft and sweet as flutes, accented with human gayety and mirth.

On came the merry whistlers. Burr sprang up and grasped Madelon Hautville's arm. "He isn't dead," he whispered, hoa.r.s.ely. "Somebody's coming. Go home, quick!"

But Madelon looked at him with despairing obstinacy. "I'll stay,"

said she.

"I tell you, go! Somebody is coming. I'll get help. I'll send for the doctor. Go home!"

"No!"

"Oh, Madelon, if you have ever loved me, go home!"

Madelon turned away at that. "I'll be there when they come for me,"

said she, and went swiftly down the road and out of sight in the converging distance of trees, with the snow m.u.f.fling her footsteps.

When she reached home she groped her way into the living-room, which was lighted only by the low, red gleam of the coals on the hearth.

Her father's gruff voice called out from the bedroom beyond: "That you, Madelon?"

"Yes," said she, and lighted a candle at the coals.

"Have the boys come?"

"No."

Madelon went up the steep stairs to her chamber, but before she opened her door her brother Louis's voice, broken with pain, besought her to come into his room and bathe his sprained shoulder for him.

She went in, set the candle on the table, and rubbed in the cider-brandy and wormwood without a word. Louis, in the midst of his pain, kept looking up wonderingly at his sister's face. It looked as if it were frozen. She did not seem to see him. Nothing about her seemed alive but her gently moving hands.

Suddenly he gave a startled cry. "What's that? Have you cut your hand, Madelon?" Madelon glanced at her hand, and there was a broad red stain over the palm and three of her fingers.

"No," said she, and went on rubbing.

"But it looks like blood!" cried Louis, knitting his pale brows at her.

Madelon made no reply.

"Madelon, what is that on your hand?"

"Blood."

"How came it there?"

"You'll know to-morrow." Madelon put the stopper in the cider-brandy and wormwood bottle; then she covered up the wounded arm and went out.

"Madelon, what is it? What is the matter? What ails you?" Louis called after her.

"You'll know to-morrow," said she, and shut her chamber door, which was nearly opposite Louis's. His youngest brother Richard occupied the same room, having his little cot at the other side, under the window. When he came in, an hour later, Louis turned to him eagerly.

"Has anything happened?" he demanded.

The boy's face, which was always so like his sister's, had the same despair in it now. "Don't know of anything that's happened," he returned, surlily.

"What ails Madelon?"

"I tell you I don't know." Richard would say no more. He blew out his candle and tumbled into bed, turned his face to the window and lay awake until and hour before dawn. Then he arose, dressed himself, and went down-stairs. He put more wood on the hearth fire, then knelt down before it, and puffed out his boyish cheeks at the bellows until the new flames crept through the smoke. Then he lighted the lantern, and went to the barn to milk and feed the stock. That was always Richard's morning task, and he always on his way thither replenished the hearth fire, that his sister Madelon might have a lighter and speedier task at preparing breakfast. Madelon usually arose a half-hour after Richard, and she was not behindhand this morning. She entered the great living-room, lit the candles, and went about getting breakfast. Human daily needs arise and set on tragedy as remorselessly as the sun.

Madelon Hautville, who had washed but a few hours ago the stain of murder from her hand, in whose heart was an unsounded depth of despair, mixed up the corn-meal daintily with cream, and baked the cakes which her father and brothers loved before the fire, and laid the table. She had always attended to the needs of the males of her family with the stern faithfulness of an Indian squaw. Now, as she worked, the wonder, softer than her other emotions, was upon her as to how they would get on when she was in prison and after she was dead; for she made no doubt that she had killed Lot Gordon and the sheriff would be there presently for her, and she felt plainly the fretting of the rope around her soft neck. She hoped they would not come for her until breakfast was prepared and eaten, the dishes cleared away, and the house tidied; but she listened like a savage for a foot-fall and a hand at the door. She had packed a little bundle ready to take with her before she left her chamber. Her cloak and hood were laid out on the bed.

When she sat down at the table with her father and brothers, all of them except Richard and Louis stared at her with open amazement and questioned her. Richard and Louis stared furtively at their sister's face, as stiff, set, and pale as if she were dead, but they asked no questions. Madelon said, in a voice that was not hers, that she was not sick, and put pieces of Indian cake into her untasting mouth and listened. But breakfast was well over and the dishes put away before anybody came. And then it was not the sheriff to hale her to prison on a charge of murder, but an old man from the village big with news.

He was a relative of the Hautvilles, an uncle on the mother's side, old and broken, scarcely able to find his feeble way on his shrunken legs through the snow; but, with the instinct of gossip, the sharp nose for his neighbors' affairs, still alert in him, he had arisen at dawn to canva.s.s the village, and had come thither at first, since he antic.i.p.ated that he might possibly have the delight of bringing the intelligence before any of the family had heard it elsewhere. He came in, dragging his old, snow-laden feet, tapping heavily with his stout stick, and settled, cackling, into a chair.

"Heard the news?" queried Uncle Luke ba.s.set, his eyes, like black sparks, twinkling rapidly at all their faces.

Madelon set the cups and saucers on the dresser.

"We don't have any time for anybody's business but our own," quoth David Hautville, gruffly. He did not like his wife's uncle. He was tightening a string in his ba.s.s-viol; he pulled it as he spoke, and it gave out a fierce tw.a.n.g. Louis sat moodily over the fire with his painful arm in wet bandages. Richard was whittling kindling-wood, with nervous speed, beside him. Eugene and Abner were cleaning their guns. They all looked at the eager old man except Richard and Louis and Madelon.

"Burr Gordon has killed Lot so's to get his property," proclaimed the old man, and his voice broke with eager delight and importance.

Madelon gave a cry and sprang forward in front of him. "It's a lie!"

she shouted.

The old man laughed in her face. "No, 'tain't, Madelon. You're showin' a Christian sperrit to stan' up for him when he's jilted ye for another gal, but 'tain't a lie. His knife, with his name on to it, was a-stickin' out of Lot's side."

"_It's a lie!_ I killed him with my brother Richard's knife!"

The old man shrank back before her in incredulous horror. The great ba.s.s-viol fell to the ground like a woman as David strode forward and Abner and Eugene turned their shocked, white faces from their guns.

"I killed him with Richard's knife," repeated Madelon.

Richard got up and came around before her, thrusting his hand in his pocket. He pulled out his own clasp-knife, and brandished it in her face. "Here is my knife," he cried, fiercely--"my knife, with my name cut in the handle. Say you killed Lot Gordon with it again!"

Madelon s.n.a.t.c.hed the knife out of her brother's hand and looked at it with straining eyes. There, indeed, was a rude "R. H." cut in the horn handle. She gasped. "What does this mean?" she cried out.

"It means you have lost your wits," answered Richard, contemptuously; but his eyes on his sister's face were full of pleading agony.

"What knife did you give me when I started home last night?"

"I gave you no knife."

Old Luke Ba.s.set a.s.serted himself again. "The gal's lost her balance,"