"Then my death will be due to my disease and not to my wound, if it would not have killed a sound man," cried Lot, eagerly.

"I tell you, your death will be due to that wound that Madelon Hautville, with maybe your cousin at her back, gave you."

Lot's face glared white at the doctor. "I gave the wound to myself!"

The doctor laughed.

"I tell you, I gave the wound myself!"

"Take your wound into court, and see what they say."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll give any man who will stab himself in just the same place, with the knife held in just the same way, every dollar I have in the world."

"You can't prove it."

"I can prove it."

"I can do away with your proof," said Lot, in a strange voice. The doctor looked at him sharply.

"Then you will not sign this paper?" Lot said, presently.

"No, I will not; and I tell you, once for all, when you die I make out my certificate as it should be."

"How?"

"By a wound from a knife or other sharp instrument, inflicted by a person or persons unknown."

Lot's face, towards the doctor, looked as if death had already struck it; but he spoke firmly. "How long will it be, first?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"Approximate."

"A false step may do it."

"I can lie still!"

"A coughing-spell may do it."

"I will not cough!"

"More than that, a thought may do it, if it stirs your heart too much. I tell you as I should want to be told myself: your life hangs by a thread."

"Sometimes a thread does not break," Lot said, with a meditative light in his eyes.

"That's true enough."

"This may not."

"True enough."

"How long will you give it to last, before you sign this paper?"

"A year."

"Then you will sign this if I live a year from to-day?"

"No, I will not sign it, for you may have another stab on New-year's day, if you seem likely to live so long," said the doctor, shortly; "but I will promise you not to make out your certificate of death from this wound."

"How great a chance of life have I?" Lot asked, hoarsely, after a minute's pause.

"Small."

"Yet there is one?"

"Yes."

The doctor opened his chest, and began selecting some bottles.

"I want no more of your nostrums," said Lot.

"Very well," said the doctor, replacing the bottles. "I would not make out that certificate sooner than necessary—that is all."

"Dose death and go to the root of the matter," said Lot. "Then you won't sign this paper?"

"No," replied the doctor, with a great emphasis of negation.

"There is one thing you will do," said he.

"What?" asked the doctor, suspiciously.

"If I die within a year, to your truest belief, from any other cause than this wound now in my side you will say so."

"Of course I will do that," replied the doctor, staring at him.

"And you will in such a case let this wound drop into oblivion, you will hold your peace concerning it, 'forever after?'"

"Of course I will."

"Swear to it?"

"I swear. But what in—"

Lot smiled. "Some time, when you have leisure, write a treatise on 'Who killed the man?'" he said, as if to turn the subject, "and keep going back to first causes. You'll find startling results; you may decide that 'twas your duty to sign the paper."

"I have no time for treatises," returned the doctor, gruffly.

"You may trace the killing back to yourself."

"I'm not afraid of it. Good-day."

"Shake hands with me, doctor," pleaded Lot, with a curious change of tone, "to show you bear no grudge for the breakfast you lost."

The doctor stared a second, then went up to him with extended hand, looking at him seriously. He thought Lot's illness had begun to affect his mind.

"Keep yourself quiet, and you may outlive the best of us," he said, soothingly, as if to a child or a woman, shook Lot's lean hand kindly, repeated his good-day, and was gone.

Lot waited until he heard the outer door close. Then he tinkled his bell for Margaret Bean. "When are they coming home?" he asked, shortly, when she stood beside him.

"His mother said she was expectin' of 'em Saturday."

"Get my clothes out of the closet, will you," said Lot.

"You ain't a-goin' to get up?"

"Yes, I'm better; get the clothes."

When Margaret Bean had laid the clothes out ready for him, and was gone, Lot laid still a moment, reflecting, with his eyes on the ceiling. He wished to cough, but with an effort he checked it, gasping once or twice. "Saturday," he said, aloud. "To-day is Wednesday—three days. Can I wait?" He paused; then as if answering another self, he said, "No; I could die a thousand deaths in that time. I can't wait."

Lot Gordon got up, moving by inches, with infinite care and pains, dressed himself, crawled out of his bedroom into his library, which was adjoining, and sat down at his desk. Margaret Bean came timidly to the door, and inquired if he did not want some breakfast. She had to repeat her query three times, he was writing so busily, and then he answered her "no" as if his thoughts were elsewhere. The old woman hungrily eyed the paper upon which he was scribbling, and went away with lingering backward glances.

Lot Gordon, bending painfully over his desk, using his quill pen, with wary motions of hand and wrist alone, that he might not jar his wounded side, wrote a letter to the bride upon her wedding-journey.

"Madelon," wrote Lot, "I pray you to pardon what I have done, and what I am about to do. The danger of blood-guiltiness and death have I brought upon you, and I now save you in the only way I know. I pray you, when you read this, and know what I have done, that you think of me with what charity you may, and that the love which caused the deed may be its saving grace."

Lot sat looking at what he had written for a moment, then tore it up, and wrote again:

"Madelon,—Alive I claimed nothing, dead I claim your memory, for the sake of the love for which I died."

And, after a moment, tore up that also.

And then he wrote again, with quivering lips, yet breathing guardedly:

"Madelon,—The love that was set betwixt man and woman that the race might not die is one love, but there is another. That have I found and found through you, and bless you for it, though death be needful to its keeping. There is another birth than that of the flesh, through this so great love, which can upon itself beget immortality of love unto the understanding of all which is above. A greater end of love than the life of worlds there is, which is love itself. That end have I attained through this great love in my own soul which you have shown me, else should I have never known it there, and died so, having lived to myself alone, and been no true lover.

"Lot Gordon."

And hesitated, reading it over; but at length tore that into shreds, and wrote yet again:

"Dear Child,—I pray you when I am gone that you wear the pretty gowns and the trinkets which I offered you once, for I would fain give you for your happiness more than my poor life."

Tears of self-pity fell from Lot's eyes as he wrote the last; then he laughed scornfully at himself, and tore that up. "Self dies hard," said he.

He wrote no more to Madelon, but now to Burr:

"Dear Cousin," he wrote, "I have this day discovered that my life is in imminent danger from the wound. If my death comes in that wise there will be trouble. I take the only way to save her, but I pray you, upon your honor, that you do not let her know, for even your love cannot sweeten her life fully for her if she knows; for love has taught me the heart of this woman. To you alone, for the sake of the honor of our blood, which has never been shed by our own hands before, I disclose this; for I would be set right in the eyes of one man when I am dead."

Lot Gordon pondered long over that; but finally tore up that as he had torn the others, and gathered up all the fragments and crawled across the room with them, and threw them on the hearthfire.

Then, leaving them blazing there, he returned to his desk, and wrote:

"To all whom it may concern, or to all whom in their own estimation it may concern, this:

"I, Lot Gordon, of Ware Centre, being weary of life, which is a dream, have resolved to force the waking. Having once before attempted in vain to take my life, I now attempt it again, and this time not in vain, for my hand has grown skilful with practice. I take my life because of no wrong done me by man or woman, nor because of any vain love; I take it solely because my days upon this earth being numbered through my distress of the lungs, I have not the courage to see death approach by inches, and prefer to meet him at one bound. I have lived unto myself, with no man accountable, and I die unto myself, with no man accountable; and this is the truth with my last breath.

"Lot Gordon."

This last Lot folded neatly and addressed it "To my fellow-townsmen," and laid it in a conspicuous place on his desk, and then wrote on another sheet and put that in his pocket. Then he opened a drawer of the desk, and took out all the trinkets which he had offered Madelon, in their pretty cases, and with them in his hands crept out of the room, and up-stairs, into the chamber which he had caused to be decked out so newly and grandly when he had thought to marry her. There was a great carven chest in a corner of the room, which Lot unlocked, and took from thence all those rich fabrics which he had bought for Madelon. And then he laid them all—the silken stuffs and plumes and fine linens and jewels—out on the great bed, under the grand canopy, and placed on the top the sheet of paper on which he had last written, "For Madelon Gordon."

Margaret Bean had listened when Lot climbed the stairs. She heard him when he came down again, entered his library, and shut the door. She waited a long time. For some reason which she did not herself know she felt cold with terror. She would not let her husband leave her alone in the kitchen for a moment. At last, when it was nearly noon, she bade him keep close at her heels, and went to the library door and knocked, and when no answer came, knocked again and again and again, louder and louder and louder. Then she made her husband open the door, with fierce urgings, and peered around his shoulder into the room. Then she gave one great shriek, and caught the old man by the arm with a frantic clutch, and was out of the house with him and screaming up the street.

Saturday morning Burr and Madelon came riding into the village. As they passed up the street everybody whom they met saluted them with a manner which had in it something respectful, apologetic, and solemn. The lovers felt no wonder at such return of cordiality, seeing in everything but reflections of their own moods, and knew not what it meant until they reached home.

Then Elvira Gordon, meeting them at the door, told them that Lot was dead by his own hand, by a knife-thrust which crossed the old wound in his side; and she dwelt upon the reason for his deed: that he had been slowly dying from the disease of his lungs, and had not the courage to die by inches, which reason now all the town believed, since the doctor had said no word in contradiction, and never would, being mindful of his oath.

Madelon listened, white and still, saying not a word; and she said nothing when, up in their chamber, whither she went to take off her bonnet, Burr, who had followed, took her in his arms, and they stood together, looking at each other and trembling. Knowing not, and never to know, the whole which he had done for them, they yet knew enough. Suddenly, in the light of their own love another greater showed revealed; and each exalted the image of Lot Gordon above the other, and was acquaint with the spirit of what he had written and kept back; for love that so outspeeds self and death needs no speech nor written sign to prove its being.

THE END