That was the cruelest part of the whole morning, worse by far than the empty will itself — that Lawrence’s design, whatever it was, required me to sit and absorb my own daughter’s suspicion, to see in Nancy’s frightened eyes the question of what I must have done.

I understood, even in the hurt of it, that she did not truly believe me a villain; she was simply a frightened woman reaching for an explanation, and an inexplicable will demands a hidden cause, and I was the only cause in the room.

But understanding a wound does not stop it from bleeding, and that one went deep, and Lawrence, wherever he was, had known it would, and had decided the cost was worth paying.

I would come to agree with him.