n there's another thing--it's night. You can't do much to get him
out anyway before morning. I don't believe they ever let folks out at
night, and my son shall carry you over just as soon as it's fit in
the morning, and you'll do just as much good as if you went
to-night."

Still Madelon stood staring at her. Then presently she began
unfastening her hood and cloak. "If you can keep me till morning I
shall be obliged," she said, with a kind of stern gratitude.

"Stay just as well as not!" cried Mrs. Otis. "Jim, just take her
things and lay 'em in the bedroom. Then you have her set right down
close to the hearth, and get all warmed through, while I get supper."

Handsome young Jim Otis stood by with his brows knit moodily while
Madelon Hautville removed her wraps, then took them over his arm, and
conducted her to the warm seat in the hearth-corner which his mother
designated.

In his heart he judged this girl whom he was defending to be guilty,
yet was full of intensest admiration, and was sorely torn between the
two and his own remorse over his false witnessing. "If I'm called
into court and sworn on the Bible, I won't own up that I saw her take
that knife," he muttered to himself, as he laid the red cloak and
hood on the high feather-bed in his mother's room.

This handsome, stalwart young man, who had hitherto been considered
full of a gay audacity where womenfolk were concerned, able to make
almost any pretty girl flutter at his smile, was strangely abashed
before this beautiful Madelon Hautville, stained, in his eyes, with
crime. He brought in wood and mended the hearth fire; he moved about
doing such household tasks as were allotted to his masculine hands,
and scarcely let his eyes rest once upon the girl in the
chimney-corner. He dreaded the sight of that beautiful face which
gave him such a shock of pity and admiration and horror. Jim Otis's
mind could not compass this new revelation of a woman, but he would
not betray her even for her own pleading if he went down perjured to
his grave. So valiant was he in her defence that he withstood her
against her own self.

Madelon's mother had died when she was a little girl. She could not
fairly remember that ever in her whole life she had been so tended
and petted as she was that night by Jim Otis's mother. Kind indeed
her father and her brothers had always been to her. They had watched
over her with jealous fondness, and had taken all rougher tasks upon
themselve