Chapter 37: Altha

Summary

• The narrator collects and strains a tincture after five days, noting its amber color.
• Grace arrives two nights later, cloaked and refusing to enter the narrator's home, requesting the tincture.
• The narrator warns Grace of the pain and blood to come with the tincture's effects and discusses how to conceal the miscarriage from her husband, John.
• Grace plans to take the tincture while John is at the alehouse.
• Afterward, the narrator experiences anxiety, anticipating news about Grace's condition.
• Mary Dinsdale visits the narrator for a cut, and the narrator fears bad news about Grace, which turns out to be unrelated.
• Grace returns, visibly injured and abused, and the narrator tends to her wounds with a poultice.
• Grace recounts her harrowing experience with the tincture, the miscarriage, and her husband's violent reaction.
• Grace reveals a history of abuse and miscarriages, keeping her pregnancies secret for fear of stigma from a "poison womb."
• The narrator expresses sympathy and regret, lamenting her inability to comfort Grace, reflecting on religious teachings concerning marital relations.
• Grace stays the night, and they share the narrator's bed, reminiscing about a childhood moment of intimacy and comfort.
• The narrator suggests to Grace there might be another way, possibly hinting at an alternative solution to her situation.
• In the morning, the narrator finds that Grace has left.