“This marriage must be announced at once! Who performed the ceremony?”
“Old Mr. Saunders, the Baptist preacher.”
“What! He who was found dead in his bed.”
“Yes, yes, it was he!”
“Pity for your sake that he is dead! But, you doubtless had some confidant, some witness—Kate Kavanagh, perhaps, or some one else? Say! speak! There was some witness to your marriage, who can be produced to prove it?”
“No! There was none! It was so sudden!”
“None!—no proof of your marriage? Yet stop—stay!—there is a chance yet, I believe; I do not know. You were married with a license, of course?”
“Yes, yes!”
“The county clerk who issued it will probably remember the occurrence. That will be something in your favor, though, alas! only imperfect, circumstantial evidence; for the mere taking out of a license is no conclusive proof of a marriage.”
“Ah, great or small, as proof it is of no avail. The license was procured blank, for Carolyn and Archer, because he had forgotten her full name, and it was afterwards filled out with our names.”