"Lizzī, your father and brothers think we had better be married by a preacher; then no one would question our relations."
Slowly she rose to her full height, the baby held to her bosom, and her look defiant, uncompromising.
"No," she said, "married once to the same man is enough. If the first time isn't right, the second can't make it so. No, I won't throw doubt on my boy." Then she paused and kissed the child. "No"—something choked her, but she gulped and continued bravely—"I won't marry you again, John, for it would cast doubt on the boy."
There was a pathetic tenderness in her voice. Not yet had she given up her husband.
"You were all right," exclaimed the impetuous Levi, "but your marriage was not legal."
Gill turned to him in silent appeal. Lizzī listened with her lips apart, gazing in mute inquiry from one to the other of the men before her. Deliberately she tore open her dress and got the marriage-certificate once so precious in her eyes. Holding it before them with a shaking hand, she said:
"This is all I've got to keep my name clean and give my boy a right to his father's name. Why isn't it legal?"
There was a wail in her unsteady voice that cut her hearers to the heart.
"Because Squire Harker married you before he was commissioned, when he had no right to issue writs or marry people."
Levi spoke in a lawyer-like way, and the terrible meaning of each word was plain to her.