Chapter 4

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_ Chapter IV

Madelon stood for a second looking at the dark, prostrate form as one of her Iroquois ancestors might have looked at a fallen foe before he drew his scalping-knife; then suddenly the surging of the savage blood in her ears grew faint. She fell down on her knees beside him. "Have I killed you, Burr?" she said, and bent her face down to his--and it was not Burr, but Lot Gordon!

The white, peaked face smiled up at her out of the snow. "You haven't killed me if I die, since you took me for Burr," whispered Lot Gordon.

"Are you much hurt?"

"I--don't know. The knife has gone a little way into my side. It has not reached my heart, but that was hurt unto death already by life, so this matters not."

Madelon felt along his side and hit the handle of the clasp-knife, firmly fixed.

"Don't try to draw it out--you cannot," said Lot, and his pain forced a groan from him. "I'll live, if I can, till the wound is healed for the sake of your peace. I'd be content to die of it, since you gave it in vengeance for another man's kiss, if it were not for you. But they shall never know--they shall never--know." Lot's voice died away in a faint murmur between his parted lips; his eyes stared up with no meaning in them at the wintry stars.

Madelon ran back on the road to the village, taking great leaps through the snow, straining her eyes ahead. Now and then she cried out hoarsely, as if she really saw some one, "Hullo! hullo!" At the curve of the road she turned a headlong corner and ran roughly against a man who was hurrying towards her; and this time it was Burr Gordon.

Burr reeled back with the shock; then his face peered into hers with fear and wonder. "Is it you?" he stammered out. "What is the matter?"

But Madelon caught his arm in a hard grip. "Come, quick!" she gasped, and pulled him along the road after her.

"What is the matter?" Burr demanded, half yielding and half resisting.

Madelon faced him suddenly as they sped along. "I met your cousin Lot just below here and he kissed me, and I took him for you and stabbed him, if you must know," she sobbed out, dryly.

Burr gave a choking cry of horror.

"I think I--have killed him," said she, and pulled him on faster.

"And you meant to kill me?"

"Yes, I did."

"I wish to God you had!" Burr cried out, with a sudden fierce anger at himself and her; and now he hurried on faster than she.

Lot was quite motionless when they reached him. Burr threw himself down in the snow and leaned his ear to his cousin's heart. Madelon stood over them, panting. Suddenly a merry roulade of whistling broke the awful stillness. Two men were coming down the road whistling "Roy's Wife of Alidivalloch" as clearly soft and sweet as flutes, accented with human gayety and mirth.

On came the merry whistlers. Burr sprang up and grasped Madelon Hautville's arm. "He isn't dead," he whispered, hoarsely. "Somebody's coming. Go home, quick!"

But Madelon looked at him with despairing obstinacy. "I'll stay," said she.

"I tell you, go! Somebody is coming. I'll get help. I'll send for the doctor. Go home!"

"No!"

"Oh, Madelon, if you have ever loved me, go home!"

Madelon turned away at that. "I'll be there when they come for me," said she, and went swiftly down the road and out of sight in the converging distance of trees, with the snow muffling her footsteps.

When she reached home she groped her way into the living-room, which was lighted only by the low, red gleam of the coals on the hearth. Her father's gruff voice called out from the bedroom beyond: "That you, Madelon?"

"Yes," said she, and lighted a candle at the coals.

"Have the boys come?"

"No."

Madelon went up the steep stairs to her chamber, but before she opened her door her brother Louis's voice, broken with pain, besought her to come into his room and bathe his sprained shoulder for him. She went in, set the candle on the table, and rubbed in the cider-brandy and wormwood without a word. Louis, in the midst of his pain, kept looking up wonderingly at his sister's face. It looked as if it were frozen. She did not seem to see him. Nothing about her seemed alive but her gently moving hands.

Suddenly he gave a startled cry. "What's that? Have you cut your hand, Madelon?" Madelon glanced at her hand, and there was a broad red stain over the palm and three of her fingers.

"No," said she, and went on rubbing.

"But it looks like blood!" cried Louis, knitting his pale brows at her.

Madelon made no reply.

"Madelon, what is that on your hand?"

"Blood."

"How came it there?"

"You'll know to-morrow." Madelon put the stopper in the cider-brandy and wormwood bottle; then she covered up the wounded arm and went out.

"Madelon, what is it? What is the matter? What ails you?" Louis called after her.

"You'll know to-morrow," said she, and shut her chamber door, which was nearly opposite Louis's. His youngest brother Richard occupied the same room, having his little cot at the other side, under the window. When he came in, an hour later, Louis turned to him eagerly.

"Has anything happened?" he demanded.

The boy's face, which was always so like his sister's, had the same despair in it now. "Don't know of anything that's happened," he returned, surlily.

"What ails Madelon?"

"I tell you I don't know." Richard would say no more. He blew out his candle and tumbled into bed, turned his face to the window and lay awake until and hour before dawn. Then he arose, dressed himself, and went down-stairs. He put more wood on the hearth fire, then knelt down before it, and puffed out his boyish cheeks at the bellows until the new flames crept through the smoke. Then he lighted the lantern, and went to the barn to milk and feed the stock. That was always Richard's morning task, and he always on his way thither replenished the hearth fire, that his sister Madelon might have a lighter and speedier task at preparing breakfast. Madelon usually arose a half-hour after Richard, and she was not behindhand this morning. She entered the great living-room, lit the candles, and went about getting breakfast. Human daily needs arise and set on tragedy as remorselessly as the sun.

Madelon Hautville, who had washed but a few hours ago the stain of murder from her hand, in whose heart was an unsounded depth of despair, mixed up the corn-meal daintily with cream, and baked the cakes which her father and brothers loved before the fire, and laid the table. She had always attended to the needs of the males of her family with the stern faithfulness of an Indian squaw. Now, as she worked, the wonder, softer than her other emotions, was upon her as to how they would get on when she was in prison and after she was dead; for she made no doubt that she had killed Lot Gordon and the sheriff would be there presently for her, and she felt plainly the fretting of the rope around her soft neck. She hoped they would not come for her until breakfast was prepared and eaten, the dishes cleared away, and the house tidied; but she listened like a savage for a foot-fall and a hand at the door. She had packed a little bundle ready to take with her before she left her chamber. Her cloak and hood were laid out on the bed.

When she sat down at the table with her father and brothers, all of them except Richard and Louis stared at her with open amazement and questioned her. Richard and Louis stared furtively at their sister's face, as stiff, set, and pale as if she were dead, but they asked no questions. Madelon said, in a voice that was not hers, that she was not sick, and put pieces of Indian cake into her untasting mouth and listened. But breakfast was well over and the dishes put away before anybody came. And then it was not the sheriff to hale her to prison on a charge of murder, but an old man from the village big with news.

He was a relative of the Hautvilles, an uncle on the mother's side, old and broken, scarcely able to find his feeble way on his shrunken legs through the snow; but, with the instinct of gossip, the sharp nose for his neighbors' affairs, still alert in him, he had arisen at dawn to canvass the village, and had come thither at first, since he anticipated that he might possibly have the delight of bringing the intelligence before any of the family had heard it elsewhere. He came in, dragging his old, snow-laden feet, tapping heavily with his stout stick, and settled, cackling, into a chair.

"Heard the news?" queried Uncle Luke basset, his eyes, like black sparks, twinkling rapidly at all their faces.

Madelon set the cups and saucers on the dresser.

"We don't have any time for anybody's business but our own," quoth David Hautville, gruffly. He did not like his wife's uncle. He was tightening a string in his bass-viol; he pulled it as he spoke, and it gave out a fierce twang. Louis sat moodily over the fire with his painful arm in wet bandages. Richard was whittling kindling-wood, with nervous speed, beside him. Eugene and Abner were cleaning their guns. They all looked at the eager old man except Richard and Louis and Madelon.

"Burr Gordon has killed Lot so's to get his property," proclaimed the old man, and his voice broke with eager delight and importance.

Madelon gave a cry and sprang forward in front of him. "It's a lie!" she shouted.

The old man laughed in her face. "No, 'tain't, Madelon. You're showin' a Christian sperrit to stan' up for him when he's jilted ye for another gal, but 'tain't a lie. His knife, with his name on to it, was a-stickin' out of Lot's side."

"_It's a lie!_ I killed him with my brother Richard's knife!"

The old man shrank back before her in incredulous horror. The great bass-viol fell to the ground like a woman as David strode forward and Abner and Eugene turned their shocked, white faces from their guns.

"I killed him with Richard's knife," repeated Madelon.

Richard got up and came around before her, thrusting his hand in his pocket. He pulled out his own clasp-knife, and brandished it in her face. "Here is my knife," he cried, fiercely--"my knife, with my name cut in the handle. Say you killed Lot Gordon with it again!"

Madelon snatched the knife out of her brother's hand and looked at it with straining eyes. There, indeed, was a rude "R. H." cut in the horn handle. She gasped. "What does this mean?" she cried out.

"It means you have lost your wits," answered Richard, contemptuously; but his eyes on his sister's face were full of pleading agony.

"What knife did you give me when I started home last night?"

"I gave you no knife."

Old Luke Basset asserted himself again. "The gal's lost her balance," he said. "It was Burr Gordon's knife, with his name cut into it, that was stickin' out of Lot Gordon's side."

"Is Lot Gordon dead?" Louis demanded, hoarsely.

"No, he ain't dead, but the doctor thinks he can't live long. Ephraim Steele and Eleazer Hooper were a-goin' home from the ball when they come right on Lot layin' side of the road and Burr a-tryin' to draw his knife out, so it shouldn't testify against him."

"It's a lie!" Madelon groaned. "Burr Gordon did not kill him. It was I! He met me, and tried to--kiss me, and--the knife was in my hand--Richard made me take it because I was coming home alone, and there had been rumors of a bear."

"I did not," persisted Richard, doggedly. "I did not make her take my knife. Here is my knife, with my name cut in the handle."

Madelon turned on him fiercely. "You did, you know you did!" said she.

"Here is my knife, with my name cut on the handle."

"You gave me a knife as I was coming out of the tavern."

"No, I did not."

"You did, and I killed him with it. It was not Burr! I ran for help, and I met Burr, and I told him what I had done, and he went back with me to Lot. Then he sent me home when he heard somebody coming. Ask Lot Gordon if I did not kill him; if he can speak he can tell you."

"There won't neither him nor Burr say a word," said the old man, "but there was Burr's knife a-stickin' into Lot's side, with his name cut into it."

Madelon turned sharply to Louis. "You saw the blood on my hand when I was rubbing your arm last night," she said.

He made no reply, but stared gloomily at the fire.

"Louis, you saw Lot Gordon's blood on my hand?"

Louis sprang up with an oath, and pushed past her out of the room.

"Louis," Madelon cried, "tell them!"

"She is trying to shield Burr Gordon!" Louis called back, fiercely, and the closing door shook the house like a cannon-shot.

"Where is Burr?" Madelon demanded of old Luke Basset.

"The sheriff took him to New Salem to jail this morning," he replied, grinning.

Madelon gave a great cry and started to rush out of the room, but her father stood in her way.

"Where are you going?" he asked, sternly.

"I am going to get my hood and cloak, and then I am going to Lot Gordon's." Her father stood aside, and she went out and up-stairs to her chamber. She took up the red cloak which lay on her bed, and examined it eagerly to see if by chance there was a blood stain thereon to prove her guilt and Burr Gordon's innocence, but she could find none. She had flung it back when she struck. She looked also carefully at her pretty ball gown, but the black fabric showed no stain.

When she went down-stairs with her cloak and hood on old Luke Basset was gone, and so were her brothers. Her father stood waiting for her, and he had on his fur cap and his heavy cloak. He came forward and took her firmly by the arm. "I'm going with you to Lot Gordon's," said he. And they went out together and up the road, he still keeping a firm hand on his daughter's arm, and neither spoke all the way to Lot Gordon's house.

When they reached it David Hautville opened the door without touching the knocker, and strode in with Madelon following. Old Margaret Bean was just passing through the entry with a great roll of linen cloths in her arms, and she stopped when she saw them.

"How is he?" whispered David, hoarsely.

"He's pretty low," returned Margaret Bean, at the same time nodding her head cautiously towards the door on her right. Long, smooth loops of sallow hair fell from Margaret Bean's clean white cap over her cheeks, which looked as if they had been scrubbed and rasped red with tears. Her own gray hair was strained back out of sight--not to be discovered, even when there was a murder in the house.

"Does he know anybody?" queried David Hautville.

"Just as well as ever he did." Margaret Bean rubbed a tear dry on her cheek with her starched apron.

"We've got to see him, then."

"I dunno as you can--the doctor--"

"I don't care anything about the doctor! We've _got_ to _see him!"_ David's voice rang out quite loud in the hush of murder and death which seemed to fill the house. Margaret Bean stood aside with a scared look. David Hautville threw open the door on the right, and he and Madelon went in.

Lot Gordon's eyes turned towards them, but not his head. He lay as still in bed as if he were already dead, and his long body raised the gay patchwork quilt in a stiff ridge like a grave.

Madelon went close to him and bent over him. "Tell who stabbed you," said she, in a sharp voice.

Lot looked up at her, and a red flush came over his livid face.

"Tell who stabbed you."

Lot smiled feebly, but he did not speak.

Margaret Bean came in, with her old husband shuffling at her heels. A great face, bristling with a yellow stubble of beard, appeared in the door. It belonged to the sheriff, Jonas Hapgood, who had just returned from taking Burr to New Salem. Madelon cast a desperate glance around at them. "Lot Gordon," she cried out, "tell them--tell them I was the one who stabbed you, and set Burr free!"

There was a chuckle from Jonas Hapgood in the door. "Likely story," he muttered to Margaret Bean's husband, and the old man nodded wisely.

"Tell them!" commanded Madelon. She reached out a hand as if she would shake Lot Gordon into obedience, wounded unto death although he was, but Lot only smiled up in her face.

Then David Hautville bent his stern face down to the sick man's. "Lot Gordon, tell the truth before God, daughter of mine or no daughter of mine," said he, in his deep voice. Lot only followed Madelon with his longing, smiling eyes.

"Speak, Lot Gordon!"

The wounded man turned his eyes on David and made a feeble motion, scarcely more than a quiver of his hand, which seemed to express negation.

"Can't you speak?"

Again Lot made that faint signal.

"He ain't spoke sence they brought him home," said Margaret Bean--"not a word to the doctor nor nobody."

"I couldn't get a word out of him," announced the sheriff, stepping farther into the room. "In course, there was Burr's knife and Burr himself over him when the others came up, and that was proof enough; but still we kinder thought we'd like to have Lot's word for it afore he died, in case it came to hangin' with Burr; but I guess he's past speakin'. I miss my guess if he can sense anything we say."

"Tell them--tell them I was the one who stabbed you, and Burr is innocent!" Madelon pleaded; but he smiled back at her unmoved.

Jonas Hapgood's great body shook with mirth. "Likely story a gal did it," he chuckled.

"I did do it!" returned Madelon, fiercely, turning to him.

"I guess you don't want your beau hung."

"I tell you I killed this man. I am the one to be hung!" _

Read next: Chapter 5

Read previous: Chapter 3

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