Charity waited in the parlor for a long time before her father returned. She kept her eyes downcast and waited a long time for him to speak. But when he did, his tone surprised her with its gentleness.

“I suppose you think me very unkind,” he said, after a long silence.

Normally, Charity would have been sufficiently cautious about keeping the peace that she would have replied with a hasty, ‘Not at all, Father.’

But somehow that day she had lost her humor for being kind to one who was unkind to her, and so when her reply came, in a low voice, it was instead, “I do not think that you are an unkind man. But yes, Father, I do believe that you have behaved unkindly. Very unkindly indeed.”

“I am sorry to have grieved you in this way, my child,” he began.

Then he coughed.

“Ah, no, that will not do.”

“You will recall, perhaps, that I told you that I believed Mr. Harding to be guilty because there was an eyewitness to the crime. But what you do not know, what I thought you did not need to know, was that the eyewitness was, in fact, myself.”

Charity did not speak. The only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire.

“The Duke does not believe his son to be guilty simply from a whim. He believes it because I told him that it was so and that he trusts me, as a man of God, to speak the truth. He does not go to the authorities because he has no wish to see his son go to the scaffold. As he is my patron, I have acted in accordance with that decision.”

Charity sat in still silence for a while. At first, there seemed nothing to do but to absorb the impact of his words. But when she did speak, her tone was calm, rational, questioning, although it shook a little with distress and shock.

“But Father, that still does not answer the question of what the motive could possibly have been. You said when we spoke previously that you believed it to have been caused by some inexplicable passion. I cannot be satisfied by that.”

“I have a theory,” the Reverend Miller said quietly, “I did not share it with you at the time because I did not want to expose you, my young and delicate daughter, to such an unseemly side of life as my theory would require. But perhaps it is the only way.”

He sighed, as though bracing himself to speak a terrible truth, before continuing, “I believe that Mary Warwick may have been Mr. Harding’s mistress, and her bastard child his natural son.”

Charity sat there, stunned. She felt as though a sunny day had suddenly morphed into a violent storm.

“I do not have any evidence for this belief, and I may be wrong in it,” her father added hastily, “but to me, it seems like the only possibility that would make any sense.”

“I cannot believe it,” she said aloud. “Mr. Harding seems like such a sensible and scrupulous young man. I cannot believe that he is not only a blackguard but a libertine too.”

“Perhaps he is not now,” her father said, “But the boy was born when he was only eighteen or seventeen. Is it not possible that he might have been a more foolish youth? I know not whether the lady was virtuous and he took advantage of her, or if she was herself the seducer. It scarcely matters.”

To Charity it felt like it mattered a great deal, but she did not say anything to that effect.

“What does matter,” her father continued, “is that as Mr. Harding got older, he wanted to conceal the existence of his former mistress and her son. After all, he was coming to an age when many young men wish to marry. And, while having such a past is scarcely unheard of among young men, it is certainly expected that he will keep the matter ‘discreet’.

“I do not know why Mary Warwick came back. Perhaps she wanted money from Mr. Harding, or perhaps she wanted him to marry her. Who knows what these foolish young women hope for when they find themselves in a predicament such as hers? But my guess is that Mr. Harding wanted her to stay quiet, and she had no wish of doing so. So he killed her and the boy.”

“Why should any man kill his child or the woman that he once loved?” Charity wondered.

“It does seem extraordinary,” her father agreed, then continued softly, “but it is not unheard of.”

Charity had heard stories, of course. Desperate young women killing themselves with their babies in their arms. Drunken men beating their wretched wives to death.

But not Mr. Harding. Surely not Mr. Harding.

Charity was suddenly struck by the feeling that she knew very little of the world or any of the people in it, that there were some things — in fact, most things — that lay far beyond what she was capable of understanding.

She could not conceive why anyone would want to kill a woman and child, yet a woman and child were dead. That in itself was such a terrible indictment of the world in general that perhaps she would have to admit her own judgement counted for little, that it could have been Mr. Harding who was responsible after all.

The thought made her feel as though she might swoon, but she took a steadying breath and kept her composure.

“I am sorry about all this, my child.” For the first time, her father met her with his eyes, and his voice was loaded with a powerful sincerity. “I wish that there was a better world for you and that I did not have to protect you from all this pain and suffering.”

“You will understand, therefore, my child, why I cannot allow Mr. Harding under my roof. I am grieved that this may cause you to suffer, but I will not change my mind.”

Charity remained where she sat. She was slightly dazed by all that had taken place — all that had changed in her inner life — in the space of a few short minutes.

“No…” she managed to say. “No, of course, you cannot. I quite understand, Father.”

“I am glad.” The Reverend reached down and placed a comforting hand upon her shoulder. “You are a good girl, and I am glad that you generally try to think the best of others.”

Charity nodded mutely.

“We shall say no more about it,” the Reverend continued. “Please place your trust in me to protect you, and I shall never allow Mr. Harding to bother you again, about this matter or any other.”

Charity nodded again, and then rose to her feet mechanically.

“Forgive me, Father,” she said, her voice a little faint. “I am very tired from all the excitement, and I think it best if I take a little time to rest.”

“Of course, my child,” the Reverend said, his brows knitting together in an expression of concern. “Please, take the time to recuperate.”

For a few seconds, Charity looked up into her father’s face, searching it for some clue as to what he might be thinking. Part of her longed to believe that he was lying to her, that there was no cause to believe that Mr. Harding was anything but an honorable young man.

But her father would not lie to her, she believed this as strongly as she believed anything. Despite all his faults, despite his difficult temperament and occasional unkindness, she knew, beneath her father’s crotchety exterior, there was a sincere desire to protect his daughter.

Perhaps he was overzealous in that desire, but she had never doubted his sincerity. The only reason he would warn her away from Mr. Harding was if he believed it to be for her own good. Of this, she was certain.

That made her anguish all the greater.

Charity had no memory of ascending the stairs to her bedchamber, nor of lying down and burying her face in the pillow. Who knows how long passed before she realized that she was weeping and had been doing so for some time.

Her heart was broken by all that her father had said, all the distress manifesting in her body in acute and physical pain.

And every time she managed to draw breath and calm herself down, she remembered that never again would she look into Mr. Harding’s eyes and feel that exquisite sense of understanding and acceptance, and then the tears began again.