“But I’ve withheld nothing! I’ve answered every question!”

“Again she must contradict the servant of God even when he speaks the plain truth. You withheld the information about pederasty, about the witches’ sabbath, about incest—and you attempted to pretend that this Alvin’s hidden powers came naturally from the order in which he was born within his family, even though it is impossible for any such devilish power to come from nature, for nature was born in the mind of God, while witchy powers come from the anti-Christ. Don’t you know that it is a terrible sin to bear false witness?”

“I do know it, and I told the truth as I understood it.”

“But you understand it better now, don’t you?” said Quill. “So when you testify, you will speak truly, won’t you, and name things as they truly were? Or do you intend to lie to protect your witch friends?”

“My—my witch friends?”

“Did you not swear that they were witches? Are you recanting that testimony?”

“I deny that they were friends of mine, not that they were witches.”

“But your deposition,” said Quill. “You seem to be retreating from that document as fast as you can.”

“I stand by every word in it.”

“And yet you claim these men were not your friends? You say that they pleaded with you to go with them as they continued their wicked journey through New England. Is this something they would ask of a stranger?”

“It must be so, since I was a stranger to them, and they asked me.”

“Beware of a defiant tone,” said Quill. “That will not help your cause in court.”

“Am I in court? Have I a cause there?”

“Haven’t you?” said Quill. “The only thing standing between you and the gallows is this deposition, your first feeble attempt to turn away from evil. But you must understand that the love of Christ cannot protect you when you half-repent.”

“Turn away from evil? I have done no evil!”

“All men are evil,” said Quill. “The natural man is the enemy of God, that’s what Paul said. Are you therefore better than other people?”

“No, I’m a sinner like anyone else.”

“So I thought,” said Quill. “But your deposition shows that these men called you by name and begged you to go with them. Why would they do that, if they did not count you among their number, as a fellow witch?”

Purity was stunned. How could this have happened? She was the accuser, wasn’t she? And yet here she sat denounced by a witcher. “Sir, is it not as likely to be a sign that I was not among their number, and that they wished to persuade me?”

“But you do not describe a scene of seduction,” said Quill. “You do not tell us how the devil stood before you, his book open, waiting to write your name in it the moment you say that you consent.”

“Because he did not do that,” said Purity.

“So it was not a seduction, and the devil did not entice you to love and serve him.”