But she dared not give vent to her chagrin in his presence. She knew that she must dissemble, must keep up her deceitful rôle, and agree to his declaration that the fact of his marriage to Flower should be made public.
So she soothed him with gentle words of sympathy, and pretended to be overjoyed at hearing that Flower had been a wife, and not the guilty girl she had been believed to be.
She declared herself eager to convince every one that Flower had been his wife.
"You will give me the marriage-certificate, of course, and I will show it to the townspeople," she said.
He explained to her that he had left the certificate with his young wife.
"You will probably find it among her papers," he said, confidently; but search for it proved the contrary.
"What shall we do now?" she asked him, with pretended anxiety.
He looked puzzled for a moment, then his face cleared.
"Although the certificate can not be found I can prove the marriage by the minister who performed the ceremony."
"Yes," said Jewel; but when he said that it was the Reverend Mr. Archer, of little Episcopal Chapel, she shook her head.