MRS. RANSOME. Yes. (_Sobs._) Oh, you don’t know how hard this is on us, Mr. Tanner. We’ve always bin respectable people, sir, as you well know. We’ve bin livin’ right here on this block these last ten years, an’ everybody knows us in the neighborhood. Her father don’t know about it yet. What he’ll say—God only knows. TANNER. I’m terribly sorry to hear this, Mrs. Ransome. MRS. RANSOME. I can forgive her, sir, but not him. They say we shouldn’t speak ill of the dead—but I always was opposed to her marryin’ him. I wanted her to marry a steady young fellow of her own religion, but I might as well have talked to the wall, for all the notice she took of me. TANNER. It’s what we have to expect of the younger generation, Mrs. Ransome. Let me see—how long were they engaged? MRS. RANSOME. Well, sir, I suppose on and off it’s bin about three years. He never could hold a job long, an’ me and her father said he couldn’t marry her—not with our consent—until he was earnin’ at least twenty dollars a week—an’ that was only right, considerin’ he’d have to support her. TANNER. I quite agree with you. I’m sorry to see a thing of this sort happen—and right in my own congregation, too. I’ve expressed my views from the pulpit from time to time very strongly upon the subject, but nevertheless it doesn’t seem to make much difference in this neighborhood. MRS. RANSOME. I know it’s a bad neighborhood in some ways, sir. But you got to remember they was going to get married, sir. If you’d bin here only an hour earlier, Mr. Tanner, there wouldn’t have bin no disgrace. (_Points to official-looking book lying on table._) Why, sir—there’s the marriage register—Mr. Smith brought it down from church this morning—all waiting for you to fix it. If you’d only come earlier, sir, they’d have bin properly married, an’ there wouldn’t have bin a word said. TANNER. That’s true. They might have avoided the immediate disgrace, perhaps. But you know as well as I do that _that_ isn’t the way to get married. It isn’t so much a matter of disgrace. That means nothing. It’s the principle of the thing. MRS. RANSOME (_Eagerly_). Oh, Mr. Tanner, do you mean it? Do you mean that the disgrace of it means nothin’? TANNER. Well—not exactly nothing—but nothing to the principle of the thing. MRS. RANSOME. An’ would you save her from the disgrace of it, if you could, Mr. Tanner, if it don’t mean nothin’? TANNER. I’ll do anything I can to help you, within reason, Mrs. Ransome, but how can I save her? MRS. RANSOME (_Eagerly pleading_). Mr. Tanner, if she has a child, as she expects, you know that respectable people won’t look at us any more. We’ll have to move away from here. We’ll be the laughing stock of the place. It’ll break her father’s heart, as sure as can be. But if you could fill in the marriage register as though they’d bin married, Mr. Tanner, why, nobody’s to know that it isn’t all respectable and proper. They had their license, and ring, and everything else, sir, as you know.