"No, thank you, Mrs. Dimmock. I came out here to marry a man I had been writing to. It turns out that man was two people, and one of them is dead, and the other is thirteen. Mr. Morgan here is neither of them. I met him yesterday afternoon at four o'clock. I think he is a decent man and I think he has made a bad mistake with this girl and is sorry for it. I'm not going to marry him by Sunday to save anybody talking." She set down her cup. "I was nearly married once to save people trouble. I came two thousand miles to get out of it."
Mrs. Dimmock's face went from pink to red. She looked at Nehemiah. "Nem? Have you got nothing to say?"
"I'd say the same, Mrs. Dimmock," Nehemiah said. "Except not as well." He did not look at Linnet. "I'll not marry a woman because she's in a fix. Caleb wouldn't have. He wrote that down." He touched his shirt pocket, where Linnet guessed the honest letter was.
"Then what's to become of the girl?" Mrs. Dimmock demanded. "Because she can't stay here. Not with a single man and a single woman under the one roof, and no relation, that's worse than before. Reverend, tell them. The druggist's family will take her the first of the month. It's a good place."
"It is a good place," the Reverend said unhappily. "Mr. and Mrs. Colfax are very good people. Miss Eskew would be well looked after."
Keziah was standing by the stove. She had not said a word. She was looking at Linnet.
And Linnet understood, in that moment, that the girl was not going to plead. She had done all her pleading on paper, for six months, in another person's name, and it had brought a stranger off a train, and now she had nothing left to plead with but the truth, and she was waiting to see what the stranger would do with it. It was, Linnet thought, very nearly the bravest thing she had ever seen.
"Reverend," Linnet said. "Is there a printer in Elkhorn Siding?"