"My duties do not permit me to go and come as I like these days," I answered evasively. But Dr. Samuel Bond was a hard man to evade.
"Jack," said he, fumbling in his dusty desk, "here's something you ought to see. I saved it for you, over there, the morning you threw it into the fireplace."
He spread out on the top of the desk a folded bit of hide. Familiar enough it was to me.
"You saved but half," I said. "The other half is gone!"
He pushed a flake of snuff far up his long nose. "Yes," said he quietly. "I sent it to her some three months ago."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing, you fool. What did you expect?"
"Listen," he went on presently. "Your brain is dull. What say the words of the law? 'This Indenture Witnesseth!' Now what is an 'indenture'? The old Romans and the old English knew. They wrote a contract on parchment, and cut it in two with an indented line, and they gave each party a half. When the court saw that these two halves fitted—as no other portions could—then indeed the indenture witnessed. It was its own proof.
"Now, my son," he concluded savagely, "if you ever dreamed of marrying any other woman, damn me if I wouldn't come into court and make this indenture witness for you both—for her as well as you! Go on away now, and don't bother me any more."