Yet she knew the answer already and had been too blind to see it. She knew what she had to do. She had to do what the strange man had failed to do, what her brother had failed to do, and what Samuel Scammell had failed to do. She must find the seal and hope that it would be the key to a door which led to freedom. She smiled.

“Pray for me, Mr. Horsnell.”

He smiled back. “Nigh these twenty years, Miss Dorcas, I’ve done that. Reckon I won’t stop now.”

She would find the seal.

Five

Campion began that same evening, announcing that she would tidy up the mess which the stranger had made in her father’s study. The man had gone, saying he would visit Isaac Blood, though it was Blood’s signature on a letter of introduction that had let him into Werlatton Hall. He had shocked Ebenezer and Scammell by the violence and savagery of his search, but he had gone as quickly and mysteriously as he had arrived. The seal did not seem to exist.

Scammell was pleased that Campion seemed to be emerging from her week-long oppression. He unlocked the study door and offered to help her. She shook her head. “Do you have the key to my room?”

He gave it to her. He looked past her at the mess she had first glimpsed when the man had seized her in the passageway. “It’s a big job, my dear.”

“I can manage.” She took the key to the study too, shut the door, and locked herself in.

Almost at once she realized that her impetuosity had led her into a mistake. This room had been searched more than once and it was unlikely that she would discover anything that her brother or Scammell had missed, yet now that she was inside she was overcome with curiosity. She had never been allowed in this room on her own. Her father had spent hour after hour in it, far into the night, and as she looked about the spilled wreckage she wondered what he had done in here. She wondered whether the scattered papers and books would yield a clue, not to the mystery of the seal, but to the mystery of her father. Why had a Christian man scowled through life? Why had he been so angry with his God, so brutal with his love? It seemed to her, standing in the musty smell of the room, that this was also a secret which needed to be uncovered if she was to be free.

She worked all evening, leaving the room only once to stalk stealthily to the kitchen. She fetched two apples, some bread and a lit candle with which she could light the thick candles on her father’s table. On her return to the study, Scammell was standing silent at the door, his eyes gloomy, observing the mess. He smiled hopefully at her. “You’re clearing up.”

“I said I would.” She waited for him to leave which, obedient, he did. There were times now when she almost felt sorry for him. She was stronger than he was and she knew that he had come to Werlatton Hall expecting so much, only to be plunged into the misery of the household. She knew, too, that he still wanted her. He still stared at her with hopeless, lusting eyes and she knew that if she married him then he would be obedient and eager to please. Exchanging her body for obedience seemed a bad bargain.