Campion still cried as she came down the stairs. Her beautiful face was smeared with tears, her eyes red, her mouth twisted.

Ebenezer, his black hair cut short in the fashion that had given rise to the nickname “Roundheads,” watched her. Goodwife nodded to him, and he acknowledged the recognition with a slow, stately inclination of the head. At nineteen he was old beyond his years, bitter with his father’s bitterness, envious of his sister’s wholeness.

Campion was taken to her father’s study. Outside the door, as ever, Goodwife pushed down on her shoulder. “Down!” Then Goodwife knocked on the door.

“Come in!”

The ritual was always the same. After the punishment, forgiveness, and after the pain, prayer. She crawled in on hands and knees as her father demanded of her and Goodwife shut her in with Matthew Slythe.

“Come here, Dorcas.”

She crawled to his chair. She hated him at this moment. She submitted because she had no choice.

The big hands closed on her tight-fitting bonnet. She hated the feel of them. The fingers pressed on her skull.

“Oh God our Father! Almighty God!” The fingers pressed tighter and tighter. His voice rose in powerful prayer, as Matthew Slythe hectored his God asking Him to forgive his daughter, to cleanse her, to make her whole, to take away her shame, and all the while the hands threatened to crush her skull. He pushed at her head, shaking it, seeking in a paroxysm of power to convince God that Dorcas needed His grace, and when the prayer was over he leaned back, exhausted, and told her to stand up.

He had a strong face, big-boned and fierce, a face heavy with God’s anger. He looked at Campion with his usual distaste and his voice was deep. “You are a disappointment to me, daughter.”

“Yes, father.” She stood with head bowed, hating him. Neither he nor her mother had ever kissed her, ever hugged her. They had beaten her, prayed over her, but never seemed to love her.

Matthew Slythe rested his hand on his Bible. He breathed heavily. “Woman brought sin into the world, Dorcas, and woman must ever bear that disgrace. A woman’s nakedness is her shame. It is disgusting to God.”

“Yes, father.”

“Look at me!”

She raised her eyes. His face was twisted with dislike.

“How could you do it?”

She thought he would hit her again. She stood still.

He opened the Bible, his fingers seeking the book of Proverbs. He read to her, his voice grating. “‘For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread.’” The page turned. “‘Her house is the way to hell, Going down to the chambers of death.’” He looked up at her.

“Yes, father.”

He seemed to growl. He had beaten her again and again, but he had never crushed her and he knew it. He could see the flicker of challenge in her soul and he knew that he would never destroy it. Yet he would never stop trying. “You will learn the seventh and eighth chapters of Proverbs by heart by this time tomorrow night.”