“September 10th, 18—. My heart has been unaccountably heavy to-day for that young maiden whom I so strangely wedded about a month ago. Perhaps the event was recalled by my meeting the villain who was to perform the mock ceremony. He avoided me with a blush of shame, turning short in his tracks as he saw me approaching. It is well that he can feel even shame for his sin. But something impressed me that that young wife might some time need even stronger evidence than the certificate I gave her—it might be lost, destroyed, or stolen, and then there would be nothing to prove her position if I should die; and so, I resolved to make a record here of their names, and the date of their marriage:
“Married—In St. John’s Chapel, Winchelsea, August 11th, 18—, by the Reverend Joshua Grafton, bishop, and rector of St. John’s parish, George Sumner, of Rye, to Miss Marion Vance, also of Rye. I take my oath that this is a true statement.
“September 10th, 18—. Joshua Grafton, Rector.”
That was all; but was it not enough?
The book dropped from the youth’s nerveless hand, and his involuntary cry smote heavily the heart of the gentle woman sitting so silently in the gathering twilight near him.
“Oh, mother—mother!”
It was as though he could not bear it, and she not there to share it with him—this tardy justice, this blessed revelation. His heart was filled almost to bursting with grief that she should have suffered all those long years, bearing so patiently her burden of shame, when she might even now be living, honored and respected.
She was only thirty-four when she died—just the time when life should have been at its prime.
She was beautiful, and so constituted that she could have enjoyed to their fullest extent all the good things that belonged to her high position in life; and it seemed too cruel, when they might all have been hers—when they were hers by right—that she should have been so crushed, and her life so corroded and early destroyed by this foul wrong.
But Marion Vance had learned submission and humility from her life of trial—she had learned to trust where the way was so dark that she could not see, and she had told her son on her death-bed that notwithstanding she could not fathom the wisdom of the lesson of sorrow that she had had to learn, yet she did not doubt that it would all result for good in the end.