Recollected now, that day when I lost Danseuse, that day when Piebald's mother and sister and their basket of provisions seemed to vanish into the air, was one of the most momentous of recent time. For in it I passed from being a kind of visitor to Whittlesea (one who, whenever he heard the whinny of his horse always imagined some future hour in time when he would ride away, back into his old life) to a state of belonging. Since that day, with the stable once occupied by Danseuse empty, I have surrendered to Whittlesea. When I imagine my life passing, it is here that it passes. I shall change utterly. I will no longer be too "restless and dazzling" for fishing. I will be a quiet, brown person. And my skills as a physician and Keeper I shall allow to grow. And I am most moved by all this. For I see that all of it will come about because of Pearce's love for me which allowed me to come here and which – although I really do not know why this should be – is the greatest love I have ever been shown by anyone.

But I must tell you a little more about that day. Another event of importance took place upon it.

The urchin boys did not return for an hour, during which I sat on a pile of willow planks and counted the money that I had upon me, which was fourpence exactly.

They were very disappointed that they had not been able to catch the horse, both for my sake and for theirs, for they clearly understood that there was reward in the thing and when I handed them the two pennies apiece they looked long at the coins, as if willing them to turn into silver.

I thanked them for their gallant chase and asked them, if Danseuse should return to Earls Bride, to bring her to me at Whittlesea. They nodded and one of them asked: "Why is he called Answers, Sir?" to which question I could think of no reply but the feeble pun, "Because he answers to that name and no other." The boys appeared downcast by this, as well they might, so I left them to go in to their suppers of corn porridge and samphire and walked slowly back to Whittlesea, remembering deliberately as I went along all the daring and brilliant rides I had had on Danseuse since she was given to me from the King's stable; and then, upon arriving at the Whittlesea gate, putting them from me for ever and going in with a sprightly step, as if the loss of my horse was nothing to me.

I went into the kitchen of the Keepers' house, it being my turn to help Daniel prepare our supper, and there found Ambrose seated at the scrubbed table looking most grave and troubled. He asked me to sit down and I could sense that some news of a terrible kind was going to be given to me. Daniel, scraping potatoes in a bowl, looked from Ambrose to me and then to Ambrose again and said softly to him, "Robert is not at fault in this, Ambrose," and Ambrose nodded.

There was a long pause, during which Ambrose arranged his hands into their habitual steeple beneath his beard. He then told me, in a most sorrowful voice, that an incident had taken place that afternoon in Margaret Fell while I had been absent. The woman Katharine had bitten and torn her blanket into shreds and with these shreds knotted together a rope and with the rope endeavoured to hang herself from a crossbeam of the roof.

"Most fortunately," said Ambrose, "the screams of the other women brought us all running and we cut her down before she choked and died. But we cannot run any risk that she will try such a thing again and so, for the time being, we have had to put her in William Harvey."

The silence of the kitchen was broken only by the scraping of Daniel's knife on the potatoes grown by Pearce. I wished to speak, but felt a great choking in my throat. To hear these things about the one person I had believed I was helping caused such a shock to my mind that I was quite unable to speak. And the revelation that followed was the most terrible of all: when asked by Ambrose why she had tried to kill herself, Katharine had replied simply: "Because Robert has left me. He has ridden away."

That evening after supper, while the others assembled for their Meeting, I went into Margaret Fell and retrieved from Katharine's place the doll she called Jesus of Bethlehem. Then, breaking the rule that no Keeper must go alone into William Harvey, I went in there and found Katharine who was chained by one foot to the wall. She was sleeping. She had been dosed with laudanum and the smell of it was on her breath. I put the doll into the straw beside her and then came away.

Chapter Eighteen. A Tarantella

I could not sleep that night. Near one o'clock, I rose and lit a lamp, being suddenly very tired of the darkness. And in the yellow lamplight I examined my hands, which is a thing I do sometimes when I am troubled, and in consequence I know the appearance of my hands extraordinarily well. My fingers are wide and red and the ends of them very flat, with flat nails. My palms are moist and hot. On the backs of my hands are a few hairs and some freckles. They are Merivel's hands, not Robert's, yet when they take up the scalpel they do not tremble and they do not err.

It was not my turn for a Night Keeping, but at two, I heard Ambrose and Edmund get up, so I pulled on my breeches and my boots and took my lamp and joined them. On our way to William Harvey (where, in truth, I hoped to find Katharine awake so that she could see me and know I had not abandoned her) Ambrose whispered to me: "The diseased mind, alas, is more prey to violent affections than that which is well."

I smiled. "I know that well, Ambrose," I said.

"Whereas," continued Ambrose, "the true saint loves all men and yet none in particular. And this is a vow that we, the Keepers, have taken at Whittlesea – to emulate the love of saints."

He said nothing more, only strode on very fast, but I knew that I had been reproached. I turned to Edmund, who still walked in step with me. "It was pity for Katharine, for her condition – which touches upon several unanswered questions in my own life – that moved me to help her, Edmund," I said.

"I neither gave to her, nor sought from her, any promises of love."

"I believe you, Robert."

"But we cannot, each on our own, help all of them…"

"Although it is precisely this that we must try to do."

"And I believed that if I could just help one…"

"What did you believe?"

"That I would know at last that I was useful."

"Useful?"

"Yes."

"And why should you assume you were not already useful?"

"Because… it was once told to me."

"By whom?"

"By whom does not matter. That I believed him is what has counted with me."

"But it should not trouble you now, Robert. You are 'useful' to Whittlesea. All I would counsel is that, from now on, you stay away from Katharine."

"And yet…"

"Ambrose would say there can be no 'and yets'."

"I was so near to a cure for her!"

"Perhaps that is somewhat arrogant. Cures are not performed by us, Robert. Only Jesus cures. And we are his agents."

We were at William Harvey by this time and Ambrose had already gone in. Familiarity with this most wretched place has not lessened my loathing of it. Piebald knows how much I fear it and likes to play upon my fears. "Does it swallow you?" he asks. "Is it like the grave to your little soul?"

Mercifully, he was asleep that night with his snout in the straw, but as I passed him I noted, as if for the first time, how sinewy and fleshless are his neck and his limbs and I thought of his vanished provisions and then of the probability that if, one day, I unlocked Piebald from his chains and asked him to kill me with his hands, he would no longer have the strength.

Despite Edmund's advice, I went at once to the stall where Katharine was lying. I bent over her. She had woken from her laudanum sleep, but the opiate was still in her blood and she lay without moving. When she saw me, she attempted to sit up and in trying to move her leg found herself held down by the iron cuff on her ankle. She opened her mouth to cry out, but no sound came from her. I was about to reach out and put a hand on her forehead to calm her when Ambrose came into the stall. He knelt down and lifted Katharine a little and held a cup of water to her lips and she drank, but she did not look at Ambrose nor at the cup, but only at me and as she lapped the water her eyes filled with oily tears. "Speak to her," Ambrose said quietly. "Tell her you are not leaving Whittlesea, for your life is here now."