Great drops of sweat stood on his forehead.
Madelon stood looking at him.

He lay still, breathing hard, for a little; then he spoke again.

"Say you will marry me, and I will clear him," he said, "or else--strike as you will.

But all will believe that Burr struck the first blow and you the second for love of him, and though he be not hung, the mark of the noose will be round his neck in folks' fancies so long as he draws the breath of life." "I will marry you," said Madelon.
"Don't cheat yourself," Lot went on, in his disjointed sentences, broken with the rise of the cough in his throat.

"This wound may not be--mortal--after all, and a man lives--long, sometimes, when he's sore put to it for breath.