"It was Burr's knife, with his initials cut in the handle, that they
found," said Dorothy, with a kind of piteous doggedness. There was in
this fair little maiden the same power of adherence to a mental
attitude which her father had shown in his religious tenets. Wherever
the men and women of this family stood they were fixed beyond their
own capability of motion.

Madelon gave a bewildered sigh. "I know not how that was," said she,
"unless--" a red flush mounted over her whole face. "No, he would not
have done that for me," she said, as if to herself.

A red flush on Dorothy's face seemed to respond to that on Madelon's.
"You think he put his knife there to take suspicion from you?" she
cried out, quickly.

Madelon shook her head. "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.