Chapter 3

Abegail sat paralysed, her dream world collapsing about her, as her father and Leonard briefly talked of Leonard's leaving. He was going farther west, into the new Colorado territory. Not east. He was leaving. He was leaving without her, and he was going west, not east—to the even more primitive wilds than the dreary Nolana, not to the opulent, lively cities of the east.

Herd hadn't gotten a foot off the front porch, however, before Abegail let out a wail of betrayal and despair and ran past her father to the door out onto the porch, spewing out all that she and Leonard had done and that she was sure that she was pregnant by him now and that, as a man of God, he surely understood that they were already man and wife.

Still not looking at her, Herd covered his embarrassment with his own raging.

"Man and wife?" he blustered. "I have not lain with you in the eyes of the Book, woman. We have not fornicated within the biblical context. I did nothing in your womb. That would be a sin. You ca