I told him that I could not believe it. Harriet and Ida would never admit to having done something cruel and unforgivable, I thought. Richard said that at one time he too had taken this for granted. He said, “I persuaded them. People listen to me, Jennie. They always have. I worked on Harriet and Ida, not with harsh condemnation but by expressing, ceaselessly, my own deep regret, and my wish that I could compensate for the harm I had done. It took years—as many as have passed since last you and I spoke—but gradually Harriet and Ida came to see things as I do. They are both profoundly unhappy women, you see: Harriet ever since her husband died, and Ida since I informed her that I no longer wished to marry her.”

I opened my mouth to voice my disbelief, but Richard continued to speak. He assured me that both Harriet and Ida had accepted their responsibility for the deaths of Patrick and Frances Ive and wanted to correct the wrong they had done. “The psychology of the matter is fascinating,” he said. “Harriet is content as long as there is someone she can seek to punish. Presently, that person is herself. Do not forget that she is eager to be reunited with her husband in heaven. She cannot allow the possibility that she might end up in a different place.”

I was speechless with shock. I said that I would never believe it. Richard told me that I would as soon as I spoke to Harriet and Ida and they confirmed it. I must meet them, he said, so that I could see for myself how changed they were.

I could not imagine Harriet or Ida changed, and I feared that I would commit murder if I were to find myself in a room with either one of them.

Richard said, “You must try to understand, Jennie. I offered them a way out of their suffering—and be assured, they were suffering. One cannot do such harm to another and not wound one’s own soul in the process. For years Harriet and Ida believed that all they had to cling to was their conviction that they had been right about Patrick, but over time they came to see that I was offering them something better: God’s true forgiveness. The sinful soul aches for redemption, Jennie. The more we deny it the chance of finding that redemption, the stronger the ache grows. Thanks to my determined efforts, Harriet and Ida came to see that the revulsion that every day grew harder inside them was disgust at their own behavior, at the wickedness they tried so hard to drape in a cloak of virtue, and nothing to do with Patrick Ive’s imagined sins.”