Before Mrs. Otis could speak she asked the question with no preface.

"Didn't you see him give me the knife?" she cried out, with fiercely
imploring eyes upon Jim Otis's face.

The young man turned deadly white. He looked at her and did not
answer.

"Didn't you?" she repeated.

"What knife?" asked Jim Otis, slowly.

"You know what knife! The knife that my brother handed me when I
started home from the ball--the knife that I stabbed Lot Gordon with.
Tell me that you saw it, that you saw me take it, here before your
mother, and then you must go to New Salem and testify, and set Burr
Gordon free! He is in prison for murder, and I am guilty, and they
will not believe it. You must tell them, and they will. You saw my
brother give me that knife."

Still Jim Otis, with his white face, stood looking at her, and
answered not a word. His mother, continually opening her mouth to
speak, then shutting it, looked first at one, then at the other, with
round, dilated eyes, turning her head and quivering all over her soft
bulk, like some great agitated and softly feathered bird.

"Why don't you speak?" demanded Madelon.

"What is it you want me to say?" said Jim Otis, then, hesitatingly.