She tried to pull away from him. He wouldn’t let her.

“Let me go.”

“Not yet,” he said. “Besides, you have nowhere to go.”

“Let her go if she wants,” said Arthur Stuart. “We can get away from here. Alvin can start up the greensong and we’ll run like the wind and be out of New England before she tells anybody anything.”

“That ain’t the problem,” said Smith. “It’s her. Very’s worried about keeping her from getting herself killed.”

“He doesn’t need to worry,” Purity said. This time when she pulled away, Cooper let her. “I’ll be fine. I just needed to tell somebody. Now I have.”

“No,” said Cooper. “It’s gone. You’re not afraid of death anymore, you welcome it, because you think that’s the only way you can get home to your family.”

“How do you know what I think?” she said. “Is that your knack? I hope not, because you’re wrong.”

“I didn’t say you were thinking those things. And no, that’s not my knack at all. But I’m a barrister. I’ve seen people at the most trying moments of their lives. I’ve seen them when they’ve decided to give up and let the world have its way. I recognize that decision when I see it. You’ve decided.”

“What if I have?” she asked defiantly. “And anyway I haven’t, so it doesn’t matter.”

Cooper ignored her. “If we leave her here, she’ll die, sooner or later. She’ll do it just to prove she’s part of her family.”

“No I won’t,” said Purity. “I don’t even know for sure that that’s what happened to them. I think the evidence points that way, but it’s a slender arrow indeed.”

“But you want it to be true,” said Cooper.

“That’s silly! Why would I want that!”

Cooper said nothing.

“I don’t hate it here! People have been kind to me. Reverend Study arranged to let me use the Harvard library. I get to listen to the lectures. Not that it will ever amount to anything.”

Cooper smiled ever-so-slightly.

“Well, what can it amount to?” Purity demanded. “I’m a woman. Either I’ll marry or I won’t. If I marry, I’ll be raising children. Maybe I’ll teach them to read before they get to school. But I won’t be the one who gets to teach them Latin and Greek. They’ll get their Caesar and their Tully and their Homer from someone else. And if I don’t marry, the best I can hope for is to be kept on as a matron in the orphanage. Children are the only people who’ll ever hear my voice.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with children,” said Arthur Stuart.

“That’s not what she means anyway,” said Cooper.

“Don’t you dare interpret me anymore!” Purity cried. “You think you know me better than you know yourself!”

“Yes, I think I do,” said Cooper. “I’ve been down the same road.”

“Oh, were you an orphan? As a barrister, did they make you work with children all the time? Did they make you sit outside the courtroom to plead your case?”