On a bright Sunday in mid-December, Martha and Dolly spend the day at home rendering deer fat into winter candles. As they work, Martha reflects on the household, Ephraim’s absence on a survey, Hannah’s visit with Lucy, and the ordinary worries of courtship, family, and keeping a home running through winter.

During their work, Dolly tells Martha that she brought food to Rebecca Foster, who remains no better and no worse. Martha thinks about how the accusations against Joseph North and Joshua Burgess have narrowed the Fosters’ world: townspeople gossip, avoid them, and increasingly connect Rebecca’s pregnancy and rape claim to Burgess’s death.

Dolly then spots a young man arriving by wagon. Martha recognizes him as Barnabas Lambard, an officer of the court from Vassalboro. At the door, Barnabas explains that he is there to arrest a man accused of rape. Martha first asks whether he has come for Joseph North, but Barnabas says he has come for Joshua Burgess and reveals that North has been allowed to present himself voluntarily because of his status as a judge and colonel.

Martha presses Barnabas about the unfairness of that favoritism, contrasting it with James Wall’s public arrest for debt. Barnabas answers plainly that he follows orders. After extracting that information, Martha tells him where to find Burgess: Pollard’s Tavern, asking him to seek out Amos Pollard there. Barnabas thanks her, and Martha notices that Dolly is openly interested in him.

After Barnabas leaves, Dolly asks why Martha did not simply tell him that Burgess is already dead. Martha explains that if Barnabas returned to Vassalboro without seeing the body, he might never investigate further. By sending him on, Martha hopes he will see Burgess’s hanged corpse for himself and begin asking questions about how a man wanted for rape ended up dead in the river. Dolly agrees that Barnabas seems clever enough to do just that.