"You never will learn, Graydon, that Madge is
not as strong as yourself. Call one of the maids, and leave her to
me."
That was the last time he saw Madge Alden for more than two years. She
soon rallied, but agreed with her sister that it would be best not
to see him again. She sent him one of his own roses, with the simple
message, "Good-by."
Late at night he went down to the steamer, depressed and anxious,
carrying with him the vivid memory of Madge lying white and death-like
where he had laid her apparently lifeless form.
"I shall never see her again," he muttered. "Such weakness must be
mortal."
CHAPTER IV
EFFORT
The deep experience, the touchstone of character, of latent power,
if such existed, had come to Madge Alden. For days she had drifted
helplessly on the rising tide of an apparently hopeless love. With
every hour she comprehended more fully what Graydon Muir had become
to her and all that he might have been. It seemed that she had been
carried forward by a strong, quiet current, only to be wrecked at
last. A sense of utter helplessness overwhelmed her. She could not
ignore her love; it had become interwoven with every interest and
fibre of her life. At first she contemplated it in wonder, in deeply
troubled and alarmed perplexity.
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