"I am."
"You came to marry Caleb Morgan."
It was not a question, exactly, and there was something in the way he said the name that made her hand go down to find the handle of the leather case. "I did," she said. "Is he unwell? He wrote that he would come himself. If he has been delayed, I can wait. I am very good at waiting."
The man looked down at the hat in his hands. He turned it once, all the way around, by the brim.
"My name is Nehemiah Morgan," he said. "Caleb was my brother. Ma'am, I don't know how to say this so it comes out any kinder than it is. My brother died last spring. The twenty-second of April. His horse went down with him crossing the Little Bitter in high water and he broke his neck. We buried him on the rise behind the house. He's been in the ground going on six months."
The windmill went on creaking. A dog crossed the street at the far end, unhurried, and lay down in the shade of the feed store. Linnet heard all of this very clearly, as though her hearing had been sharpened while the rest of her went quiet.
"That is not possible," she said.
"I'm sorry."
"No. You misunderstand me. I am not refusing to believe you because I am distressed. I am telling you that it is not possible." She was surprised at how level her voice was. It was the voice she had used in the print shop when Prosper ordered a job set in a typeface they did not have. "I have a letter from Caleb Morgan dated the fourth of September. I have one dated the eleventh of August. I have six that were written after the twenty-second of April. He sent me the fare. He sent me a description of the kitchen and told me he had put up new shelves. He asked whether I took sugar."