They did away easily enough with the force of Lot's statement, for there are many theories to furnish skin-fits for every difficulty, if one searches in the infinity of possibilities.
Lot's true reason none fathomed, for it was beyond their sounding-lines of selfish curiosity; but they found another which seemed to meet the needs of the case as well.
Lot, they said, had bargained with Burr to give up all claim to Madelon, and he would set him free by confessing an attempt at suicide.

Margaret Bean, it was reported, had seen the letter which Lot had written to Burr in prison.

When Madelon, who, half crazed by anxiety about her lover, had wrongfully accused herself to save him, had seen him turn to her rival and scorn her after his release, she had accepted Lot in a rage of pride and jealousy, as he had planned for her to do.

The breaking off of the marriage betwixt her and Lot they mostly attributed to the simple cause he had mentioned--his failing health--though some thought that he had hesitated about marrying into the Hautville family when it came to it.
Suspicion had been for a time somewhat hushed against Madelon, the more so that she had been seen, since Dorothy had jilted Burr, to pass him with scarcely a nod, and was popularly supposed to hold an Indian grudge against him, and to be still anxious to wed his cousin Lot.
However, the tide soon turned again.

On the Sunday after the banns between Dorothy and Eugene had been published, Burr had been seen to walk home openly with Madelon from evening meeting; and it was soon known that he was courting her regularly.
Then darker whispers were circulated.