I told him that I did not believe amends could be made. Patrick was dead. There was no undoing that. Richard said, “Yes. Patrick and Frances are dead, and you and I can never again know happiness. But what if we were to make a corresponding sacrifice?”

I did not understand. I asked him what he meant.

He said: “If we killed Patrick and Frances Ive, and I believe that we did, is it not fitting that we should pay with our own lives? Do we not find ourselves unable to benefit from the joy that life offers to other people? Why is that? Why does time not heal our wound as it is meant to heal? Could it be because we do not deserve to live while poor Patrick and Frances lie in the ground?” Richard’s eyes darkened as he spoke, turning from their usual brown to almost black. “The law of the land punishes with death those who take the lives of the innocent,” he said. “We have cheated that law.”

I could have told him that neither he nor I took up a weapon and murdered Patrick and Frances, for that would have been the factual truth of the matter. However, his words resonated so powerfully that I knew he was right, although many would have said he was wrong. As he spoke, my heart filled with something akin to hope for the first time in fifteen years. I could not bring Patrick back, but I could make certain that I did not escape justice for what I had done to him.

“Are you proposing that I take my own life?” I asked Richard, because he had not said so explicitly.

“No. Nor that I take mine. What I have in mind is not suicide, but execution—for which we will volunteer. Or at least I shall. I have no wish to force your hand in this.”

“You and I are not the only guilty parties,” I reminded him.

“No, we are not,” he agreed. What he said next nearly caused my heart to stop. “Would it surprise you greatly, Jennie, to learn that Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury have come round to my way of thinking?”