The carriage stopped. I rose and poked my head out the window, the same action I had done when we had first stopped here. Then, it had been dusty, hot, and chaotic. Now it was wet, cold, and quiet. No sound or sight of anyone else on the road; no nicker of another horse, no shadowy figure of a man waiting in the trees. Just the muddy road stretching behind us and ahead. I drew back into the cabin and shook my head at Julia’s unspoken question.

“He will come,” she said.

I heard the muffled sound of an exchange between Weatherly and John Driver and then the carriage rocked—Weatherly alighting from his position up front, for he appeared outside the open window.

“My lady, John Driver and I believe this is the section of road.”

“Yes, I think so too,” I said.

Lady Hester finally raised her head from Miss Grant’s shoulder, eyes heavy with fatigue. “I wish to go outside,” she said.

She did not look able to stand, let alone wait outside in the cold air. “You should stay here,” I said. “We do not know how long Lord Evan will be.”

Miss Grant nodded. “Lady Augusta is right, my dear. Stay inside. At least until your brother arrives.”

Despite that plea, Lady Hester rose from her seat—albeit unsteadily—and fumbled at the door latch. Weatherly, on seeing her attempt, opened the door.

And so we all descended the steps to the roadside. Julia and I stood together beside the carriage and watched Lady Hester, supported heavily under one arm by Miss Grant, walk a little way ahead, their hems dragging through the mud.

“Her body may be healing,” Julia said softly, “but I fear the hurt to her spirit is irreparable. Did you know she refuses to pray?”

“One can live without prayer,” I said. After all, I did so every day.

Julia placed her hand upon my arm. She still grieved my apostasy. “But one cannot live without forgiveness, Gus. How does one forgive such a deep betrayal? Her own brother—charged with her care—rejecting all that she is and incarcerating her in such a place. In a hell that nearly killed her!”

I had no answer to that, for I had yet to discover a way to forgive Duffy for his lesser crime of jealous high-handedness. Perhaps that was Julia’s point. I knew she could not fathom how I could live without God. Indeed, how did one live without religious faith? It was, I suspected, the nature of humanity to place faith in something, whether it be a god or rationality or perhaps fate. But what now did I place my faith in? A question I was yet to resolve.