"Lor' bless you, Mr. Meredith, there was a child comin'--hain't Miss Jewel told you?" cried Sam, and a terrible groan answered him: "My wife, my little wife, oh, why did you not tell me!" and then he rushed wildly to Jewel, demanding to know why she had kept this from him. "My sister's disgrace--oh, how could I tell you, who loved her, of that dark stain?" she began; but he interrupted, wildly: "There was no stain, no disgrace; she was my wife by a secret marriage, and she promised to go away with me but she was afraid of her mother, and stayed. Jewel, this story must be published to the world, that no stain may rest on her memory," he declared, passionately to the cruel girl who had brought about all this misery. CHAPTER XXIII. Jewel bit her lips in anger and scorn when she learned that Laurie Meredith had found out the secret she had guarded so carefully, fearing lest he should love the memory of the dead girl better for that knowledge. But she dared not give vent to her chagrin in his presence. She knew that she must dissemble, must keep up her deceitful role, 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. "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?"