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Brockholst Livingston rose. “Did you ever tell Mrs. Ring of this?”

“Yes, I told her the same evening,” Hope said promptly.

“How did the prisoner at the bar seem to you after Elma went missing?” asked Mr. Colden.

Hope looked at the lawyer in surprise; this wasn’t what they’d practiced. She’d thought he’d meant to ask her about Elma’s plans to marry. Then she saw, over his shoulder, the trio of lawyers for the defense, General Hamilton with his vivid coat and lively expression, Colonel Burr in sober black, Brockholst Livingston looming over them both. All waiting to pounce if she gave them an excuse.

They would adore another chance to rip Mr. Colden to shreds over hearsay.

Hope found herself determined to thwart them. She’d give them no excuse to tear more strips off poor Mr. Colden, who was only doing his best, alone.

“On Monday, the day after she was missing, about ten or eleven o’clock in the forenoon, I met Levi upstairs alone. I attacked him about her—he denied knowing anything of her, though from his looks I was confident he did. He soon began to use all possible means to convince me of his innocence.”

“All possible means?” one of the jury whispered to another, with a coarse laugh.

Hope lifted her chin. She couldn’t help the color in her cheeks, but she refused to let them unsettle her. “The Sabbath evening after she was missing, he came to me, saying, ‘Hope, if you can say anything in my favor, do it, for you could do me more good than any friend I have in the world to clear me; therefore, if you can say anything, do it before the body is found—’”

All the betrayal and revulsion she felt surged up through her throat, choking her. How could he? How could he refer to Elma as “the body,” as though she were nothing more than a collection of bones?

Hope straightened, looking at the men in the jury box, the spectators in the galleries, Levi’s lawyers. Let them know the sort of man they were defending. “He said, ‘Do it before the body is found, as after it will do no good. But if the body is found a good way off that will clear me, as I was not a sufficient time from my brother’s to go far.’”

For the first time in the whole miserable proceeding, Hope saw Levi flinch, and was glad of it.

“He then pressed me very hard to go to the alderman’s and see him. I refused, upon which he gave me a paper he had drawn, wishing me to sign it.” Loathing dripped from her words like poison. “The purport of the paper was that he paid no more particular attention to Elma than to any other female in the house—that nothing had passed between them like courtship or looking like marriage.”

Colonel Burr stepped forward, full of feigned sympathy. “Was not Levi as particular to you as he was to Elma?”

Hope looked directly at Levi. “No. He was not.”

“Was not Levi very much liked?”

There was no point in lying about it. “He was, very much. All spoke well of him.”

Colonel Burr exchanged a quick word with his colleagues. “Did Levi ever walk out with Elma—or with you?”

They knew this already. Caty had told them. “He went once to the museum with me and Elma. He went once to church with me of an evening; Elma was to have gone, but she was sick.”

“Did you not stop at some house on the way to church?”

“Yes, we did.” Hope’s voice was firm and clear. That night, she had thought . . . Well, it didn’t matter what she had thought. “We stopped at Ezra Weeks’s, the brother of Levi.”

The three lawyers briefly huddled together. When they emerged, Colonel Burr said only, “No further questions.”

What did they mean, no further questions? Hope was ready to answer whatever they asked. She wanted to look into Levi’s eyes and have him know how much she knew he’d betrayed them. She wanted the jury to know how much he’d betrayed them, this man who looked so appealing but was so rotten at the core.

“Miss Sands, you may step down,” said Mr. Colden.

They had kept Caty up there for the better part of an hour or more. Reluctantly, Hope stepped down. As she made her way back to the bench, she could feel Levi’s eyes on her. Hope turned and locked eyes with him.

Would she watch him hang? Gladly.

“Mr. Elias Ring,” Mr. Colden called.

Hope took the seat Elias had vacated next to Caty.

“You did very well,” Caty whispered. “I wish I had your strength.”

“You have your own,” Hope said, surprised, but Elias had made it to the stand and there was no time to say more.