How do I know which ?" Suddenly she cried out to Burr so loud that the people in the entry below heard her, "Tell me now that you are innocent, and either your cousin Lot or Madelon Hautville guilty," she demanded.

"Tell me!" Burr, white and rigid, looked at her, and made no reply.

"Tell me," she cried, in her sweet, shrill voice, "tell me now that you did not stab your cousin Lot, and Madelon Hautville spoke the truth, and I will keep my promise to you, even if my heart is not yours." Parson Fair grasped his daughter's arm again.

"No man whom you have promised to wed should reply to such distrust as this," he said.
"Dorothy, I command you to go down-stairs and be married to this man." Then Dorothy broke away from him with a wild shriek.

"No, I will not marry this man with his cousin's blood on his soul! I will not, father; you shall not make me! I will not! Night and day I shall see that knife in his hand.