She said her husband intended to leave Virginia and take her with him.
She asked Nathaniel to arrange a meeting with Daniel before Richard moved.
The message described Catherine as a prisoner of circumstances she could not control.
Nathaniel forwarded the letter to Isaiah without promising anything.
Isaiah showed Daniel only the parts he asked to see.
Daniel read the request and felt anger rise before fear.
He remembered the way Catherine used to speak about making his life easier, as though the absence of punishment could be counted as kindness.
Now she described herself as somebody needing rescue from the very household power she had exercised over him.
Rose asked whether Daniel wanted to answer.
He said he wanted Catherine to tell the truth, but he did not want to stand in a room with her.
Thomas told him those choices did not contradict each other.
Daniel could ask for accountability without providing emotional comfort to the person who had harmed him.
He wrote a reply through Isaiah.
It said Catherine should give a truthful statement to an independent lawyer, identify everyone involved in the birth and the sale, and stop pursuing him.
He would not meet her privately.
He would not sign a confession, accept money in exchange for silence, or allow her to claim that what happened between them had been voluntary.
Isaiah read the reply and asked whether Daniel wanted any changes.
Daniel added one sentence.
He wrote that Eleanor’s safety must never again be used as a reason to threaten him or anyone helping her.
The completed letter was brief and direct.
Daniel felt exhausted after signing it, but he did not regret a word.
Captain Graves returned to Virginia under a promise that he could give testimony without being immediately detained by Richard’s private guards.
He had no guarantee that his cooperation would protect him from consequences for his earlier actions.
The local attorney explained that the process could still expose him to civil claims and criminal questions.
Graves said he understood.
He described the orders he received from Catherine and the later orders from Richard.
He identified the payments, dates, and messengers involved.
He also admitted that he had threatened Daniel at Red Creek and had been willing to move him without asking whether the transfer was lawful.
The admission damaged Graves’s own reputation.
It made his account harder to dismiss as a convenient invention.
Isaiah asked why Graves had changed his mind.
