at!" said Madelon,
with a look of despairing scorn. "He has kissed you, Dorothy Fair,
and you can think he has committed a murder!"

Dorothy gasped. "They said--" she began again.

"_They said!_ Are you a woman, Dorothy Fair, and don't you know that
the man you love enough to let him kiss you should do no wrong in
your eyes, or else it's a shame to you, and you should kill him to
wipe it out?" Dorothy shrank away from her in the bed, her
frightened blue eyes staring at her over her shoulder. "My God! don't
you know," said Madelon, "the man you love is yourself? When you
believe in his guilt you believe in your own; when you strike him for
it you strike yourself. Don't you know that, Dorothy Fair?"

Dorothy looked at her, all white and trembling. She gave a half-sob.
Suddenly Madelon's tone changed. "Don't be afraid," said she. "I'm
different from you. I don't wonder he liked you better. It's no blame
to him. I know you care about him. You don't believe he did it."

"I don't know," sobbed Dorothy. The door opened a crack, and the
black woman's watchful eyes appeared.

"Oh, you do know, you do know! I tell you, I did it--I! Can't you
believe me? I'm a wicked woman, and I love anybody I love in a
different way from any that a woman as good as you are can. I did it,
Dorothy, and not Burr! He mustn't suffer for it. We must see him, you
and I together! Don't you believe me?"

"I don't--know," sobbed Dorothy. The dark face appeared quite fully
in the door. Madelon cast a quick glance about the room. Dorothy's
pretty Bible, with a blue-silk-ribbon marker hanging from it, lay on
her dimity dressing-table. Madelon sprang across and got it. The
black woman stood in the doorway, muttering to herself. She looked
all ready to spring to Dorothy's defence. Madelon did not notice her
at all. She went close to Dorothy, put the Bible on the bed, and laid
her right hand upon it.

"I swear upon this Holy Book," said she, "that this hand of mine is
the one that stabbed Lot Gordon. I swear, and I call God to witness,
and may I be struck dead as I speak if what I say is not true. Now do
you believe what I say, Dorothy Fair?"

Dorothy looked at her and the Bible in bewildered terror. She nodded.

Chapter VIII

Something like joy came into Madelon's face. "Then we will save him,
you and I!" she cried out. "We will save him together! He shall not
be hung! He shall be set free! They shall let him out of jail to-day,
and put