“We came past the window and we overheard,” his son replied. “We weren’t eavesdropping, sir, but my mother was speaking very clearly. We must marry. We love each other.”

“How much d’you have?” Mrs. Stoney asked the girl.

“I have sixty pounds,” Alys said boldly. From the pocket of her gown she pulled a fat red leather purse and put it down on the dark wood table before her mother. “Sixty pounds,” she said defiantly. “Sixty pounds down, and the rest to come. Is that enough?”

With a pang of terror Alinor recognized at once the heavy red leather purse that Mrs. Miller had pulled from its hiding place behind the brick in the millhouse chimney: it was Jane Miller’s dowry. She opened her mouth and found she could say nothing.

“Is that enough?” Alys asked, her voice shaking. “Is it enough?”

“It’s a surprise,” Mr. Stoney remarked gravely. “How has a maid like you got more savings than her mother?” He turned to Alinor. “How have you got a fortune like this? Did you know she had put this by?”

“My father gave it to me,” Alys spoke rapidly before her mother could reply. “His prize money from the navy. He won it serving in the navy, and when he came home last time, he gave it to me for my dowry. I was always his favorite. He gave it to me for my dowry if I wanted to marry before he came back.”

“I should think your mother could have used the money often, over the past year,” Mrs. Stoney said mistrustfully. “Everyone knows how hard she works. Shouldn’t you have told her? And given it to her?”

“My father and my mother didn’t always agree,” Alys said boldly, ignoring Alinor, her eyes only on Mrs. Stoney’s grim expression. “My father told me to keep his savings safe for his return, and use it only for my dowry. I have to be obedient to my father, don’t I?”

She turned to Mr. Stoney, certain he would support male authority. Solemnly, he nodded: “An order from your father? Yes, you had to obey it.”

“He hasn’t left you, has he?” Mrs. Stoney turned to Alinor. “Deserted you? If he gave his daughter her dowry before he went? Was he planning on never coming back?”

At once Alys saw that she had overplayed her hand. Before Alinor could reply, the girl interrupted: “Oh, no! My da would never leave us! He promised to come home. He just left his savings with me, in case I wanted to marry before he returned. He’s a sailor at war, he knew that he might be a long time away. There was no way of knowing how long his voyage might last. He was just trying to do the best for me.”

“But you said that they did not always agree?”

Alinor, knowing that Mrs. Stoney would have seen her at Chichester market with a blackened eye, with a bruised cheek, shook her head. “I’ve no complaint against him and I know that he is coming home,” she said steadily. “We disagreed sometimes, like many a husband and wife—nothing out of the ordinary. Zachary signed up for a voyage with a coastal trader, and then we heard that he had been pressed into the navy. Then the navy went over to the prince. But I don’t doubt that when the peace comes, the sailors and the soldiers will be released, with their back pay and prize money. I don’t doubt that he will come home then.”