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He mumbled his way through his affirmation, making clear he felt this whole process beneath his dignity.

Hope had never much cared for Elias, had never understood why Caty had chosen to marry him when she might have had so many others, but recently her vague distaste had bloomed into full-blown dislike.

It was, she realized, that she’d generally been able to ignore him. Caty ran the household and Elias slouched in and out as he pleased. Hope dealt with him as little as possible. But Elma’s murder had forced them all together, had brought these divisions into the open. To fail to repair a door was one thing; to humiliate Caty in court was another.

Mr. Colden began with the same question he’d asked Hope. “Mr. Ring, when did you first become aware of an intimacy between Elma and the prisoner at the bar?”

“Levi Weeks was a lodger in my house,” said Elias brusquely. “In the ninth month—”

Brockholst Livingston broke in. “What is that month called?”

“I don’t know it by any other name,” said Elias contemptuously. “Thee can tell.”

Mr. Colden was jingling his watch fobs again, all three of them. “Mr. Ring, you were saying. In the ninth month?”

“When my wife was gone into the country”—Elias looked reproachfully at Caty—“Levi and Elma were constantly together in private. I was alone and very lonesome and was induced to believe, from their conduct, that they were shortly to be married. Elma’s bed was in the back room, on the second floor,” he added, directly contradicting Caty.

Hope took Caty’s hand, freezing even in her gloves, and squeezed.

“The front room had a bed in it, in which Isaac Hatfield slept about three weeks,” Elias continued. He nodded to Hatfield, jammed in among the witnesses yet to be called. “Hatfield during this time was occasionally out of town. I slept in the front room below, and one night when Hatfield was out of town, I heard a talking and noise in his room. In the morning I went up into the room and found the bed tumbled and Elma’s clothes which she wore in the afternoon lying on the bed.”

“Did you see her in the room?” inquired Colonel Burr pleasantly.

“No, I saw nothing, but I have no doubt she was there.”

One of the jurymen called out, “Did Elma, do you suppose, get up from her bed and go away naked? You say she left her clothes.”

Snickers and guffaws broke out throughout the room at the image of Elma prancing through the house naked.

Hope turned in her seat, glaring at them. How dare they? Her cousin had died and they were making mock of her.

“She left part of her clothes,” said Elias shortly. “She had two suits and this was part of the best, which she had on the day before, being First Day.”

Hope stared down at her own skirt, gray and plain. Elma’s Sunday dress had been her pride: a calico gown over a white dimity petticoat. She had labored over it, trying to make it look like the ones the ladies in the fashion papers wore, over Caty’s protests that the calico was too gay, the cut too risqué, the overall impression too bold.

Elma had loved that dress.

Elma had died in that dress.

Mr. Colden made a valiant effort to reclaim the floor. “Did you see anything improper or immodest in the behavior of Elma, until she was acquainted with the prisoner?”

“No. Never.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ring.” There was no disguising the relief with which Mr. Colden ended his questions; Hope wished Caty could be done with Elias as easily. “If the defense has any questions?”

“We do.” General Hamilton bounced up on the balls of his feet, but Colonel Burr cut neatly ahead of him.

“Mr. Ring, did you ever see any intimacies between the prisoner and Margaret Clark?”

Elias looked from one man to the next, as if suspecting a trick. “I have seen, formerly, some familiarities between them,” Elias said cautiously.

Hope could have told them that meant nothing at all. Peggy was familiar with everyone. It was what made her such good company, and so entirely unreliable. Not like Caty, who kept everything locked inside, but was true to her core.

Colonel Burr continued, conversationally, “Did you ever hear any noise when Hatfield slept in the room over you?”

“No,” said Elias, relaxing a little.

“Did you ever know that the prisoner and Elma were in bed together?”