"You--couldn't!"

"I could, and I did."

Dorothy shook her head in hysterical doubt.

"Listen," said Madelon--"listen. I'll tell you why I did it, Dorothy
Fair. Burr Gordon had been with me a little before he went with you.
Perhaps you knew it. If you did, I am not blaming you--he's got
taking ways, you couldn't help it; and I am not blaming him--he's a
man, and you're fairer complexioned than I am. But I was fool enough
to be mad without any good reason--you understand I am not saying
anything against him, Dorothy Fair--when I saw him with you at the
ball. He had a right to take anybody to the ball that he chose. It
was naught to me, but I was mad. I have a quick temper. And I started
home when that young man from Kingston offered to fiddle for the
dancing after you and Burr went out; and my brother Richard made me
take his knife for fear I might meet stragglers, and I had it open
under my cloak. And when I got to that lonely part of the road, after
the turn, I saw somebody coming, and I thought it was Burr. He walked
like him. And I looked away--I did not want to see his face; and when
I came up to him the first thing I knew he threw his arm around me
and kissed me, and--something seemed to leap up in me and I struck
with Richard's knife. And--then he fell down, and I looked and it was
not Burr--it was his cousin Lot. And--then Burr came, and we heard
whistling, and others were coming, and he made me run, and the others
came up and found him; and now they say he did it and not I. It was I
who stabbed Lot Gordon, Dorothy Fair!"