Yet defeated she was. She knew it and, standing in the room, tense and frightened, she knew she was plunging into a great oppression of spirit. She fought back tears, hatred giving her strength, and she listened to the voices in the hall. Grimmett was explaining something, she could not hear what, and Scammell’s voice was raised first in surprise, then expostulation, and finally agreement. The front door sounded and then there were only the voices of Scammell and Goodwife.

She hated hearing voices far away in a house. It reminded her of childhood, of listening to the anger of her parents, that harbinger of cruel punishment. She used to pray on those nights, pray desperately with her fingers clenched tight for one single, small sign of Jesus’s love. Yet the only answer would be the wind about Werlatton, the darkness pressing on the great lawn, and the mutter of voices far off.

Time passed. She was panting now, though she did not know it, as if her body needed great drafts of air to calm it. And calm she did, slowly. Night was falling outside. She tried to open the shutters but her fingers were powerless against the locked metal bars.

She prayed. She prayed for deliverance. She knew God was there and she knew Jesus was love and, despite the evidence of her childhood, she insisted on believing that there might be goodness and love in God. She prayed, not to the Puritan God of punishment, but to a God of love. Her prayers, even as she uttered them, seemed hopeless.

The key turned. It was impossible for that sound not to awaken the terrors of childhood as the door opened and a candle appeared, just as it would when her father came late at night to beat her, his face heavy with God’s burden as he despatched the maid, Charity. This time, though, it was Samuel Scammell who appeared.

He shut the door behind him, placed the candle on the table, and smiled at the girl who stood by the window. “Shall we pray, Dorcas?”

She said nothing.

He beckoned her to come round the table and gestured at the floor. “I thought if we knelt together and took our troubles to Him, it might help.”

The calmness of her voice surprised her. “He tumbled the walls of Jericho. Do you have a trumpet?”

He flinched from the scorn in her voice. “You don’t understand, Dorcas. You’re not well.” He kneaded the air with his hands, desperate for her understanding. “Your father’s death, it must be hard. Dr. Fenderlyn said you should be physicked. You must rest, my dear, in Dorset.” He shook his head stupidly, then dropped into the language of Zion which saved him from thinking too deeply. “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will help, Dorcas. Put your cares on Him, and your trust in Him.” His voice grew stronger as he fell into the cadences of worship. “Though we be troubled, Dorcas, though we be afflicted, yet He is there! I know it! I’ve proved it in my life, through His saving grace, through the blood of the Lamb, Dorcas!”