People said now that they were accomplices in attempted crime.

That black atmosphere of suspicion and hatred, which gathers nowhere more easily than in a New England town, was thick around Burr and Madelon.

They breathed, though as yet it was in less degree, the same noxious air as did the persecuted Quakers and witches of bygone times.

The gases which lie at the bottom of human souls, which gossip and suspicious imaginations upstir, are deadlier than those at the bottoms of old wells.

Still Madelon and Burr knew nothing of it, nor Burr's mother, nor Lot, nor any of the Hautville men.