‘Well, it don’t rightly go up no more,’ Elias said, staring down at his naked body.

‘So what were you going to do with this young woman, huh? Tell me that. What excitements did you have in mind for her?’

Elias glanced down again. ‘I’m cold,’ he said.

Jonathan let the gown fall back. He sat on the bed beside Carma; the mattress squeaked as she rocked to and fro beside him.

‘Now you look here, Elias,’ Jonathan said, inhaling carefully, ‘you’re a farmer, and first of all a farmer needs a woman for milking. Isn’t that right?’

‘She ain’t a woman!’

‘Carma, can you milk? Carma? Answer me.’ A moaned assent issued from her. ‘So, Elias, she can milk. Can you keep chickens, Carma? Yes? You want her to keep chickens, Elias? She can do that. Can you cook? Yes? She cooks, too. You want her to keep house and do the weeding? She can do all those things.’

‘No! No! I want me a woman! I been cheated! I been—’

‘Don’t talk to me about cheating, you old fraud.’ Jonathan’s eyes glittered. His voice was so soft now that Carma had to stop her rocking to hear. ‘There’s no way you can say you’ve been cheated of anything you could rightly make use of. Where’s your common sense, man? Carma needs a home and you need somebody to do the woman’s work—’

‘I’ll be a laughing stock! Joke of the—’

‘For the love of God, think, Elias, think. A hundred miles west, nobody’s going to know about her. Nobody. She’ll keep you warm in your bed at night. She won’t mock you for not giving her children. You’ll know for sure she won’t be running around behind your back. If you don’t ask her for what she can’t give – and she doesn’t ask you for what you can’t give – you’ve got everything you came to Hannaville for. What more do you want?’

Elias shook his head. ‘They flimflammed me.’

‘And you flimflammed them.’

Outside, the wind blew. The panes in the casement window shuddered, and the room was cold enough for frost to form on the inside of the glass. Elias stared out into the dark for a moment; then he searched Jonathan’s face, sighed heavily and lowered himself on the bed. ‘She got right pretty hair,’ he said, reaching out a hand. She shrank away from him and his shoulders slumped. ‘Ain’t there no limits nowhere, Preacher?’ he said.

Early the next morning Carma and Elias left Hannaville; he took her elbow to help her into the wagon and the whole town saw it. They’d heard voices in the night, too, and by evening they knew every word that had been spoken in the tiny room. Within a year, by which time Sarah was heavily pregnant, Jonathan’s reputation had spread for miles. You could talk to him, they said. He might hit you in the face but at least he wouldn’t go tossing the Bible at you and he always spoke so beautifully and in such a gentle voice. What these things showed for sure, they said, was that he was one of the few preachers anywhere who was a true representative of God on earth.