"I must take pity on you and enlighten you," she said, "but promise me it shall go no further. It's only our own little circle that knows about it and I don't want to be the laughing-stock of the Lane."
"Of course I will promise," he said eagerly.
She kept his curiosity on the qui vive to amuse herself a little longer, but ended by telling him all, amid frequent exclamations of surprise.
"Well, I never!" he said when it was over. "Fancy a religion in which only two per cent. of the people who profess it have ever heard of its laws. I suppose we're so mixed up with the English, that it never occurs to us we've got marriage laws of our own—like the Scotch. Anyhow I'm real glad and I congratulate you."
"On what?"
"On not being really married to Sam."
"Well, you're a nice friend of his, I must say. I don't congratulate myself, I can tell you."
"You don't?" he said in a disappointed tone.
She shook her head silently.
"Why not?" he inquired anxiously.