A great fire blazed on Dorothy Fair’s chamber hearth.  The red glow of it was over the whole room, and the frost on the windows was melting.  Curtains of a soft blue-and-white stuff, said to have been brought from overseas, hung at Dorothy’s windows and between the high posts of her bed.  She had also her little rocking-chair and footstool frilled and cushioned with it.  There was a fine white matting on her floor, and a thick rug with a basket of flowers wrought on it beside her bed.  The high white panel-work around Dorothy’s mantel was carved with curving garlands and festoons of ribbon and flowers, and on the shelf stood tall china vases and bright candlesticks.  Dorothy’s dressing-table had a petticoat of finest dimity, trimmed with tiny tassels.  Above it hung her fine oval mirror, in a carved gilt frame.  Upon the table were scattered silver and ivory things and glass bottles, the like of which Madelon had never seen.  The room was full of that mingled perfume of roses and lavender which was always about Dorothy herself.

The counterpane on Dorothy’s bed was all white and blue, and quilted in a curious fashion, and her pillows were edged with lace.  In the midst of this white-and-blue nest, her slender little body half buried in her great feather-bed, her lovely yellow locks spreading over her pillow, lay Dorothy Fair when Madelon entered.  She half raised herself, and stared at her with blue, dilated eyes, and shrank back with a little whimper of terror when she came impetuously to her bedside.

“You don’t believe it,” Madelon said, with no preface.

Dorothy stared at her, trembling.  “You mean—­”

“I mean you don’t believe he killed him!  You don’t believe Burr Gordon killed his cousin Lot!”

Dorothy sank weakly back on her pillows.  Great tears welled up in her blue eyes and rolled down her soft cheeks.  “They saw him there,” she sobbed out, “and they found his knife.  Oh, I didn’t think he was so wicked!”

Madelon caught her by one slender arm hard, as if she would have shaken her. “You believe it!” she cried out.  “You believe that Burr did it—­you!”

“They—­saw—­him—­there,” moaned Dorothy, with a terrified roll of her tearful eyes at Madelon’s face.

“Saw him there! What if they did see him there?  What if the whole town saw him?  What if you saw him?  What if you saw him strike the blow with your own eyes?  Wouldn’t you tear them out of your own head before you believed it?  Wouldn’t you cut your own tongue out before you’d bear witness against him?”

Dorothy sobbed convulsively.

“I would,” said Madelon.

Dorothy hid her face away from her in the pillow.

Madelon laid her hand on her fair head, and turned it with no gentle hand.  “Listen to me now,” she said.  “You’ve got to listen.  You’ve got to hear what I say.  You ought to believe without being told, without knowing anything about it, that he’s innocent, if you’re a woman and love him; but I’m going to tell you.  Burr Gordon didn’t kill his cousin Lot.  I did!”