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"Coht one of her arms and pulled her close

This tier, and by the end wasn’t nearly as soft

When they pulled apart, Balthazar coh Jane’s dark hair and s, as if she was about to cry "What’s wrong?"

"We’re wrong," she said "Or so everyone around us believes"

"They’re the ones who are wrong"

"We are Catholics" Jane spoke the words as though she had been over them in her mind many times before "Your family are heretics"

"You know I care little for the church--"

"The churches care for us whether we like it or not Where would we live?"

Balthazar fell silent Throughout the colonies, a patchwork of religious beliefs and rules governed each settlement; the only true faith in one colony was forbidden and outlawed in another Though the rules governing e were secular--at least, here in Massachusetts--nobody would allow either of them to remain here married to the other

I could convert, he wanted to say, but the words died in his throat To become a Papist would be to cast his parents, and Charity, out of his life forever; they would never even acknowledge him after that, and he could never reside perain He, like Jane and her father, would require special permission even to visit Could he bear it? Yes, he could leave his parents--but not Charity His dreamy little sister had no one else to understand her

More than that, he’d heard sermons his whole life about the evils of the Roh to judge Jane and her father as he found them, he knew he could never, in honesty, claim the Catholic faith as the truth of his heart Without that, any conversion would be empty, and Jane would know it

Jane stepped away from him, her earlier joy faded and bloay like the first fall leaves "We shouldn’t have come here today"

"Jane, don’t Let’s enjoy what time we can"