It was only as they got up together to go and fetch help that she felt the nakedness of her most intimate parts under her skirt. She was sore from his gross poking. Full realization of what he had been doing was coming to her now. Her trembling grew worse and sobs began to rise in her.

‘You saved me, Annie,’ she said through chattering teeth, as they stumbled arm in arm across to the house. ‘I feel so . . . so soiled . . . But thank God he’s still alive.’

Annie’s voice throbbed fiercely through the dusk. ‘You’re not the one who is soiled. He’s a beast. He’ll burn in the eternal fires of hell.’

Their father brought a candle with him. He stood over Charles Barber, his shadow monstrous above him. The girls watched from the doorway. Margaret was still weeping quietly and shaking so that she could barely stand.

William Hanson did as they had done, stopping to feel the man’s pulse, looking at the wounds on his head. He turned to them and his face, the strong features more emphatic in the candlelight, wore the most terrible expression Margaret had ever seen.

‘What have you done?’ His voice was low, like a storm about to break.

‘He attacked Margaret,’ Annie said. ‘He had her down on the ground. So I hit him. He was trying to . . . to have his way with her.’

Their father walked slowly across and stood over them, his manner so terrifying that both of them cringed against the doorframe. He looked about to lash out. Instead, in a voice laden with quiet fury, he said, ‘Go into the house.’

Single-handedly, their father had carried Charles Barber’s prone body inside. He told Margaret and Annie that he was to be put to bed in the very small back bedroom beside the one they shared, which had once housed them as babies. Charles was to be cared for here. For an hour, their father bathed and tended to the invalid himself, issuing orders to the girls to bring water and soap and rags; he saw to the wounds and made him comfortable.

Margaret and Annie sat silent in the parlour. Annie made tea and handed Margaret a cup laced with sugar. She sat with it in both hands to try and hold it steady. Annie sat beside her and stroked her back. Margaret saw clearly then that for all her fire, her sister possessed a deep kindness and sympathy.

Eventually they heard their father’s tread, slow on the stairs. He appeared at the door and to Margaret he seemed taller that night, his hair thicker and wilder, the nose more crooked, eyes more intense. He stood there, arms at his sides, and gazed on the pair of them.

‘I’m waiting,’ he said. ‘What is the explanation for the abominable events of this Sabbath evening?’

They tried to tell him.