“I was rather hoping it was a dream as well.” Abigail dug in her skirt pockets for the remains of the bread and cheese they’d been given by Mrs. Purley. They’d eaten most of it, watching in the woods that afternoon. “I know what Orion did, dearest. We’ve been looking for you for two weeks.” She divided the cheese—pitifully tiny morsels, when pulled into three—and handed the others chunks of the bread. In return she received Muldoon’s canteen, and a smaller flask which proved to be half full of British Army rum. “You’ve been in Gilead—”

“That horrid place where Orion grew up?” Her voice was weak, but she sounded very much herself. “Then—it wasn’t a dream—”

“What wasn’t?”

“The Hand of the Lord. Bargest. He was standing by my bed. Not that I ever saw him in my life, but he looked exactly like”—her voice stuck a little on his name—“as Orion described him to me.”

“He spoke to you of him, then?”

“Heavens, yes. I’ve been helping him edit those nasty sermons of his for a year and a half now. Poisonous, dirty-minded, and so vain.” She leaned against the fence-rails: Abigail felt them shift in their sockets, smelled the moldy stink of the blanket she wore. “I asked him, why did he put up with that man’s interference. Constant finicking—nothing ever right. Everything we’d settle on, Orion would ride back there for approval and there was always something wrong. I knew he was getting nothing for it. He said, I owe the Reverend more than I can ever say.”

“What he owed him,” said Abigail softly, “is that the Reverend knew that Orion had killed a girl here. Two girls.”

She heard the hiss of Rebecca’s breath, and felt slight movement through the fence-rail. Wondered if her friend had so far forgotten her conversion, as to cross herself.

Rebecca whispered, “He is mad.”

“Bargest, or Orion?”

They moved off again, following the line of fence-rails. “I think—both. Orion—it wasn’t a nightmare, was it?” Rebecca stumbled, and Abigail, immediately behind her, caught her.

“No. I think Bargest told him that Mrs. Pentyre was one of the Nine Daughters of Eve—”

“God, not that horrible thing! He polished that sermon like a jewel—Orion said he must have given it once or twice a year, the whole time Orion was growing up here. Simply vile! All Woman’s fault, that Man sinned—” She stumbled again, with a soft sob of pain.

“Here, m’am, this won’t do.” Muldoon’s voice sounded very close, and by the swish of clothing and the fence-rail brambles, Abigail guessed he’d picked Rebecca up again. “Up you come. You good for another piece, then, Mrs. A?”

Abigail sighed. “Lead on.”