“No matter. You were married with it. And now I remember a saving thing! The clergyman who married you of course affixed his certificate of marriage to the license, and gave it to you. Where is it? All depends now upon that. Where is it?”
“I do not know! I never saw it! If the parson gave one, probably Frank took charge of it!”
Again a pause fell between them, and the noises of the wind and waters arose in gloomy concert. At last Georgia spoke—
“Miserable girl! And so you have no proof whatever of this asserted marriage?”
“None! none! But oh, what does that matter, after all? God knows that we loved, and were married, as He knows that we will soon be reunited!”
“Wretched girl! who will credit the story?”
“No one in the world, perhaps! But, ah! what odds? Could the proving of my marriage bring him back to life, or give my father happiness?”
“Most wretched girl! You seem quite lost to the shame you have brought upon yourself! the dishonor you have brought upon your family!”
“Ah, go on! You cannot say anything to me so bitter as my heart is saying all the time!”
“Your father! Your old, gray-haired father! to bring him to shame in his old age! Can he survive the knowledge of your fall?”