“That she brought false accusation against a stranger?” John grimaced. “You have a fleck of yolk on your chin.”

Hezekiah dabbed at it with his napkin. “I think the accusation is not false,” said Hezekiah.

John glared at him. “I’m glad you didn’t say anything to compromise this blacksmith’s case.”

“I don’t mean that it’s objectively true, I mean that she’s being forthright. Her intent is pure. She believes the charge.”

John rolled his eyes. “So how many should I hang for one girl’s superstition?”

Hezekiah looked away. “She’s not superstitious, sir. She’s a sweet girl, good-hearted, and very bright. She’s been studying with me, and sitting in on lectures.”

“Oh, right. The girl and her professors. That’s why Harvard got raided by the tithingmen and half the faculty hauled off for questioning.”

“She didn’t initiate that, sir. She refuses to accuse any but the original defendants.”

“Till that rope-happy ghoul runs her into the ground.”

“You should have heard the blacksmith’s lawyer accuse Quill of using torture. Out on the common in front of everybody.” Hezekiah smiled at the memory. “He held the strings and Quill danced for the crowd.”

John liked the image as much as Hezekiah did, but he was a judge, and the first skill he had perfected was the ability to remain solemn and suppress even so much as a twinkle in his eye. “So you’re here to tell me that this girl, this Purity, means well as she tries to get this young man hanged.”

“I mean to say it isn’t a case of vengeance for spurned love, or any such thing as are usually at the heart of witch trials.”

“Then what is it? Since we both know...” John glanced around and lowered his voice. “... that the one certainty in this trial is that there are no witches.”

“The boy was full of brag about some knack or other. All she knows is what he told her, or someone in his party. But she believed it. She’s doing this because she must believe in the law that hanged her parents. If she did not believe that the law was right, then the sheer injustice of it would drive her mad.”

“Oh, now, Hezekiah. ‘Drive her mad’? Have you been reading sensational novels?”

“I mean it quite literally. She has a deep faith in the goodness of our Christian community. If she thought her parents were falsely accused and hanged for it—”

“Who were her parents? Is it a case I...” And then, doing the arithmetic in his head—the girl’s age, that many years ago—he realized whose daughter she was. “Oh, Hezekiah. That case?”

Tears spilled from Hezekiah’s eyes. “What I wanted you to know, John, was that the one who seems to be the accuser is merely the last victim of that wretched affair.”

John answered gently. “New England is a lovely place, Hezekiah. We have our share of hypocrisy, of course, but generally we face up to our sins and the frailty of human nature, and confess our wrongs right smartly. But this one—how did it ever go that far?”