Listening to Richard, I started to understand that even the most intransigent person—even a Harriet Sippel—might be persuaded by him. He had a way of putting things that made you see the world differently.

He asked for my permission to bring Harriet and Ida to our next meeting and, with doubt and fear in my heart, I granted it.

Although I believed everything Richard had told me by the time he left me, I nevertheless reeled in shock when, two days later, I found myself in a room with Harriet Sippel and Ida Gransbury, and saw with my own eyes that they were as changed as Richard had reported them to be. Or rather, they were the same as always, except that now they strove to apply their compassionless rigidity to themselves. I was filled anew with passionate hatred for them when they spoke of “poor, kind Patrick” and “poor, innocent Frances.” They had no right to utter those words.

The four of us agreed that we had to do something to put right the wrong. We were murderers, not according to the law but according to the truth, and murderers must pay with their own lives. Only after our deaths would God forgive us.

“We four are judge, jury and executioner,” said Richard. “We will execute one another.”

“How will we do it?” Ida asked, gazing adoringly at him.

“I have thought of a way,” he said. “I shall take care of the details.”

Thus, without noise or complaint, we signed our own death warrants. I felt nothing but immense relief. I remember thinking that I would not be afraid to kill as long as my victim was not afraid to die. Victim is the wrong word. I don’t know what the right one is.

Then Harriet said, “Wait. What about Nancy Ducane?”

I KNEW WHAT SHE meant before she explained. “Oh, yes,” I thought to myself, “this is the same old Harriet Sippel.” Four deaths for a good cause were not enough for her; she craved a fifth.

Richard and Ida asked her what she meant.

“Nancy Ducane must die too,” said Harriet, her eyes as hard as flint. “She led poor Patrick into temptation, announced their shame to the village and broke poor Frances’s heart.”

“Oh, no,” I said, alarmed. “Nancy would never agree to give up her own life. And . . . Patrick loved her!”

“She’s every bit as guilty as we are,” Harriet insisted. “She must die. We all must, all the guilty, or else it will be for nothing. If we are going to do this, we must do it properly. It was Nancy’s revelation, remember, that prompted Frances Ive to take her own life. And besides, I know something that you don’t know.”