"I don't know about the knife," she said, "but I know I stabbed Lot Gordon." "He would not have done that," said Dorothy, with troubled, angry blue eyes on her face.

"He would have thought of--others.

He never changed the knife, Madelon Hautville!" "I know nothing about the knife," repeated Madelon, "but Burr Gordon did not kill his cousin." "He was there, and it was his knife," said Dorothy.

There was now a curious indignation in her manner.

It was almost as if she preferred to believe her lover guilty of murder rather than unduly solicitous for her rival.
Madelon Hautville turned upon her with a kind of fierce solemnity.
"Dorothy Fair," said she, "look at me!" and the soft, blue-eyed face, full of that gentle unyielding which is the firmest of all, looked up at her from the pillows--"Dorothy Fair, did that man, who's locked up over there in jail in New Salem, for a crime he's innocent of, ever kiss you ?" Madelon's face seemed to wax stiff and white.