sponsibility. With that morning's work I have never felt fully
satisfied, and though I know that any magistrate would probably have
performed the ceremony, I have sometimes thought I acted rashly, and
have carefully kept that license as my defence and apology."

"Thank God, that it has been preserved. Give it to me."

"Pardon me if I say frankly, I prefer to retain it. All licenses are
recorded by the officer who issued them, and by applying to him you
can easily procure a copy."

"Treachery baffles me there. A most opportune fire broke out eighteen
months ago in the room where those records were kept, and although
the court house was saved, the book containing my marriage license
was of course destroyed."

"But the clerk should be able to furnish a certificate of the facts."

"Not when he has been bribed to forget them. Please give me the paper
in your possession."

She wrung her slender fingers, and her whole frame trembled like a
weed on some bleak hillside, where wintry winds sweep unimpeded.

A troubled look crossed the grave, placid countenance of the pastor,
and he clasped his hands firmly behind him, as if girding himself to
deny the eloquent pleading of the lovely dark eyes.

"Sit down, madam, and listen to----"

"I cannot! A restless fever is consuming me, and nothing but the
possession of that license can quiet me. You have no right to
withhold it,--you cannot be so cruel, so wicked,--unless you also
have been corrupted, bought off!"

"Be patient enough to hear me. I have always feared there was
something wrong about that strange wedding, and your manner confirms
my suspicions. Now I must be made acquainted with all the facts, must
know your reason for claiming the paper in my possession, before I
surrender it. As a minister of the Gospel, it is incumbent upon me to
act cautiously, lest I innocently become auxiliary to deception,
--possibly to crime."

A vivid scarlet flamed up in the girl's marble cheeks.

"Of what do you suspect, or accuse me?"

"I accuse you of nothing. I demand your reasons for the request you
have made."

"I want that paper because it is the only proof of my marriage. There
were two witnesses: my grandmother, who died three years ago on a
steamship bound for California, where her only son is living, and
Gerbert Audre, a college student, who is supposed to have been lost
last summer in a fishing smack off the coast of Labrador or
Greenland."

"I am a witness accessible