"I am very sorry to tell you, but he has gone abroad. His health was failing, and his congregation sent him to Europe for a year," she replied.
He looked dismayed for a moment, then rallying, said, confidently:
"They will certainly take my word, when I declare that I was Flower's husband."
Jewel looked very dubious. She would not answer.
"What do you think?" he demanded, impatiently, and Jewel sighed, and answered:
"People are so hard and malicious—I—I—am afraid they would not listen without proof."
He knew that this was quite true. The world was so hard, especially where a woman's honor was concerned, that it would not hear the vindication of an angel without proof.
Almost unconsciously he groaned aloud:
"What am I to do? How vindicate the memory of my lost angel in the minds of those who believed her false and light?"
Much as she loved him, Jewel gloated over his suffering. She would not have spared him one pang if by lifting her hand she could have thrown off the whole burden of his misery.