“I wish you joy,” I said at last. I kept my tone even and neutral, thinking it was the most dignified thing I could do- and the cruelest.

“I fear there may be some unpleasantness with your uncle,” she said, her words coming out very quickly, as though she had rehearsed them. “You see, the man I am marrying is English, and his family has long been of the High Church disposition. For the sake of our ease, I have chosen to join the Church.”

I took a sip of my wine and drank too fast. I felt myself growing slightly giddy. “You are converting?”

“Yes,” she said.

I cannot say what she expected of me- that I might rail and lecture and rant, might demand to know what she knew of this man, and would use my thieftaking skills to learn all I could of him. I opened my mouth to speak, but I made only a humiliating, gurgling noise. I cleared my throat and began again. “Why?” I said quietly.

“How can you ask me that?”

“How? How can I not? Do you believe as he believes? Is his faith yours?”

“You have known me too long to think I would make this decision because of belief or faith. Had I wished to become a Christian out of devotion to Christian doctrine, I should have done so long before now.”

“Then why do you convert?” I asked. My tone had grown louder and more violent than I had intended.

Miriam closed her eyes for a moment. “It is about happiness,” she said.

Oh, how I would have rejoiced to have destroyed her argument, but what counter could I offer? What could I say of her happiness- the happiness provided by a man of whom I knew nothing? I should have left then, I know, but as I was about to torture myself for half a year, there was no good reason not to start at that moment.