It was the first time he had put it into words, and as if the very name of wife made her dearer to him, he wound his arm around her and waited the doctor’s answer, which came promptly and decidedly. “Most assuredly she is your lawful wife! You took her with your full consent, knowing I could marry you, and I have brought your certificate, which I suppose the lady will hold.” He handed a neatly-folded paper to Josephine, who, with Everard looking over her shoulder, read to the effect that on the evening of July 17th, in the Village Hall at Holburton, the Rev. John Matthewson married J. Everard Forrest, Jr. of Rothsay, Ohio, to Miss Josephine Fleming of Holburton. “It is all right, I believe, and only needs the names of your mother and sister as witnesses to make it valid, in case the marriage is ever contested,” Matthewson said, and this time he looked pitilessly at Everard, who was staring blankly at the paper in Josephine’s hands, and if it had been his death-warrant he was reading he could scarcely have been paler. Something in his manner must have communicated itself to Josephine, for in real or feigned distress she burst into tears, and laying her head on his arm, sobbed out: “Oh, Everard, you are not sorry I am your wife! If you are, I shall wish I was dead!” “No, no, Josey, not sorry you are my wife,” he said, “I could not be that; only I am so young, and have two years more in college,—and if this thing were known I should be expelled, and father would never forgive me, or let me have a dollar again; so, you see it is a deuced scrape after all.” He was as near crying as he well could be and not actually give way, and Matthewson was regarding him with a cool, exultant expression in his cruel eyes, when Mrs. Fleming appeared, asking what it meant. Very briefly Dr. Matthewson explained the matter to her, and laying his hand on Everard’s arm said, laughingly: “I have the honor of presenting to you your son, who, I believe, acknowledges your claim upon him.” There was a gleam of triumph in Mrs. Fleming’s eyes, but she affected to be astonished and indignant that her daughter should have lent herself to an act which Mr. Forrest was perhaps already sorry for. “You are mistaken,” Everard said, and his young manhood asserted itself in Josephine’s defense. “Your daughter was not more to blame than myself. We both knew what we were doing, and I am not sorry, except for the trouble in which it would involve me if it were known at once that I was married.” “It need not be known, except to ourselves,” Mrs. Fleming answered, quickly. “What is done cannot be undone, but we can make the best of it, and I promise that the secret shall be kept as long as you like. Josey will remain with me as she is, and you will return to college and graduate as if last night had never been. Then, when you are in a position to claim your wife you can do so, and acknowledge it to your father.”