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. She looked like one who
bared her breast for a mortal hurt as she spoke. Dorothy went pink to
the roots of her yellow hair and the frill on her nightgown. She made
an angry shamed motion of her head, which might have signified
anything.

"And you can believe this thing of him after that!" 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