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“I know it is an ordeal, but it will soon be over. All that is required of you is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” Mr. Colden said encouragingly. “If I may, Mrs. Ring, I’ll come to you the day before trial to go through what you remember and make sure it’s fresh in your mind. Mr. Ring too.”

Caty’s face looked like that of a much older woman. “I’ll make sure Elias is here.”

When the lawyer had gone, Caty took a bucket of water and some rags. “I’d best attend to my chores. Mr. Croucher leaves us to marry, but he wishes to keep his room to display his wares.”

“Why not tell him to go elsewhere? Thee never liked his running a store from our home.”

“What choice have we? Who would take a room here—now?” Caty’s voice cracked. She turned quickly away, hiding her face. “I’d best go clean before he sees fit to send that girl again to do my work for me.”

“At least Elias fixed the door.” Hope’s mind wasn’t on the door; it was in the road outside the Widow Broad’s house, Levi calling after her. “Caty? When Elma was ill, why wouldn’t thee let Levi call the doctor?”

“What does that matter now? I have work to tend to. And thee too,” Caty added tartly.

“But why?” Hope followed her up the stairs, toward Mr. Croucher’s room. “Why didn’t you want the doctor?”

“Words are cheap, but physicians cost money. Levi hasn’t children to feed.”

And never would now. Not if they hanged him.

Hope followed Caty into Mr. Croucher’s room. “Why did thee tell Mr. Colden that Elma suffered from cramps of the stomach for a year?”

Caty set her bucket down with a thump, dipping her rag in the water. “It felt like a year. Thee would think no one had ever been ill before.”

But that wasn’t true either. Elma hadn’t made a fuss—not until later, with the laudanum, and that had just been the once. She’d had the laudanum vial, but hadn’t taken it, not even the few drops prescribed by the physician, not after those first few days when she’d been so ill that Levi had pleaded with Caty to call for the doctor now, before it was too late, and Hope had been barred from the room.

Mr. Croucher’s room was stuffy, thick with the scent of the dyes used on the fabrics he sold and the expensive snuff he took pinch by pinch from an enamel-and-gold box. “Why did Mr. Colden look at thee like that when he spoke of Elma’s illness? Why wouldn’t Levi let me stay with her? Why won’t thee tell me?”

“There are some subjects not suited to thy years.”

“I’m older than thee when thee married Elias! In a year, I’ll be older than Elma will ever be.”

Caty twisted the water out of the rag as if she were wringing the neck of a chicken. “If thee must know . . . thy cousin was with child.”

“With child?” Hope gawked at her sister. “But—”

They’d come back from Cornwall toward the end of October, and Elma—Elma had left only a few days later, visiting friends in the country. Hope had missed her and been relieved all at the same time, because Elma in the country meant Levi to herself.

When Elma had returned, they hadn’t spoken much. Elma had been at her most provoking, returning any attempt at intimacy with mockery. She’d always, Hope realized, been infuriating when she was unhappy.

And Hope hadn’t seen it. Or hadn’t wanted to see it. All she’d seen was the way Elma leaned toward Levi, the way she whispered in his ear, the solid bar of Elma’s bedroom door closing behind them.

“The baby—was it Levi’s?”

Caty slapped her rag against the sill. “Who else?”

Hope shook her head, too sick for words. Of course it was Levi’s; it couldn’t be anyone’s but Levi’s. But it was one thing to know they’d gone into that room alone together, one thing to hear Mr. Croucher whisper of what he’d seen, and another to be presented with the proof of it.

A baby was such a solid thing.

“I should have known she’d be just like her mother. Father warned me. Born of sin, he said. A daughter of Eve.” Caty scrubbed at the grime on Mr. Croucher’s windowsill with quick, angry movements. “I wish she’d never been born.”

“Thee can’t mean that!”

Caty slammed the rag down. “We were happy before she came.”

“It wasn’t Elma’s fault,” said Hope hotly. “We were happy before Levi came. Caty?”

Caty buried her face in her hands. It took Hope a moment to realize she was crying, her whole body shaking with sobs. Hope couldn’t remember ever seeing Caty cry before. Not when they were children; not when people robbed their father’s short-lived store; not when Elias’s businesses failed; not when Elma didn’t come home.