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“It isn’t what you think. I swear it.”

“What use is thy swearing? Thee swears and forswears thyself as easily as thee draws breath.”

“I never lied to you.” Levi took a step forward, his eyes never leaving hers. She felt his gaze like a touch. “I never kept anything from you that was mine to keep.”

He looked so earnest, so true, that Hope almost felt herself weakening. Almost.

“When Elma didn’t come home on Monday—thee told Caty thee had no doubt it would turn out better than we thought. Why did thee say that?”

Levi’s eyes dropped. He shook his head, silent.

Hope could feel the rage building in her. “How could thee? How could thee pretend thee didn’t know? If I knew something I would tell thee, thee said.” She took a cruel satisfaction from the way he flinched at her savage mockery of his words. “But Elma didn’t keep thy secret. We knew.”

“I never knew she told you we meant to marry!” he cried. Quickly he amended, “Because we didn’t. I was never with her Sunday night. I was at my brother’s—he’ll swear to it.”

“Did thy brother refuse to let thee marry her? Did he want thee to marry higher?”

Hope looked closely at Levi, watching his mouth open and close, as he stuttered and failed to speak. “She might have brought a suit against thee for breach of promise. A fine thing that would look for thy brother—and thee.”

Levi made an inchoate noise of frustration. “She wouldn’t marry me! She wouldn’t even walk out with me! You know that better than any.” His voice dropped. “It was you I asked to walk with me, Hope.”

His eyes were light blue, like a rain-washed sky.

She could remember walking with him, large and warm and safe beside her. Sitting with him at the table in his brother’s house, as his brother’s wife poured her tea, and the baby made them all laugh crawling up onto Hope’s lap. And she’d looked at him, and found him looking at her, and felt a warmth spread through her that had nothing at all to do with the tea.

“Thee left with her that night,” Hope said stubbornly. “Just after eight. She waited until thee came and then thee both left.”

“I left a little after eight but I never left with Elma. You would have known if you’d been here to see.”

Hope put her chin up. “Caty said thee did. She said she heard thee whispering on the stair and then the door closed behind thee both.”

Levi looked seriously at her. “Where were you that night, Hope? When I came home and asked for you, you weren’t there.”

Hope hesitated a moment. “I was at meeting. Thee knows that.”

“Until midnight?”

“What would thee know of our meeting?” Hope snapped.

Levi looked at her searchingly, as though she were a beam he was scrutinizing for woodworm. “I know that Elias came back well before you did. He was here before I went out. Where were you, Hope?”

Hope gasped for breath, feeling the way she had when Elma had dared her to jump in the creek, and there had been that horrible moment when the waters had closed over her head and the sodden weight of her skirts had wrapped around her, before she scrabbled choking back to the surface. “Thee cannot mean—”

“If you quarreled—if there were an accident—”

“What would I be doing with Elma in Lispenard’s Meadow? When she had said she was gone to be married to thee?”

“When you said she was gone to be married to me.” The room felt horribly still. The boarders were all out, at work. Even the dust motes caught drifting in the afternoon sun seemed to slow and stop. “She never said anything to anyone else.”

“Because thee enjoined her to secrecy!”

“It’s your word—and your word only.”

“Is that thy brother speaking too?” Hope asked bitterly. “Thee knows I’m only a woman—and a Friend. I cannot swear as thee do—or forswear myself neither.”

Levi turned his hat around in his hand. “You weren’t so particular once—when you came to church with me, and my brother’s house.”

“I wish I had been,” spat Hope. “I wish thee had never entered this house. I wish thee had never had an existence!”