“Will you take me, Bethia, on such terms as these?” While he spoke, the blood hammered in my temples. As I struggled to form an answer, the voices drifting up from the hall below us grew louder. Then there was a great tattoo of boots, pounding up the stairs. The latch rattled, the door opened. Samuel Corlett dropped my hand and jumped to his feet. A scholar, ruddy and gasping, almost fell into the room. Caleb stood behind him, his face, generally schooled to an inscrutable stillness, twisted up by uncontained emotion. “Excuse me, tutor,” the boy stuttered, “but this lad here burst in,
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