Then he turned to the girl.

"No," he said, with stern, defiant eyes upon her face, "I did not see your brother give you the knife." "You did! I know you did!" "I _did not!_" "You did see him! You were looking at us when I went out!" "I was tightening a string in the fiddle when you went out," said Jim Otis.
"You must have seen." "I tell you I did not." Madelon looked at him as if she would penetrate his soul, and he met her eyes fully.
"I did not see your brother give you the knife," he replied, with a steady, unflinching look at her; but a long shudder went over him as he spoke.

The first deliberate lie of his whole life was Jim Otis telling, for he had seen Richard Hautville give his sister the knife.
Madelon believed his lie at last, and turned away.

What with her sore exhaustion of body and this last disappointment her heart almost failed her.

She went back to the settle for her cloak and her hood, and tied them on, while the others stood watching her, seemingly in a maze.