TANNER (_Astounded_). _Me_ fill in the marriage register? Do you mean that you want _me_ to make a fictitious entry in the marriage register? MRS. RANSOME. It wouldn’t be so very fictitious, Mr. Tanner. They’d have bin married regular if you’d only come half an hour earlier. Couldn’t you fill it in that they was married before he died, sir? TANNER. But that would be forgery. MRS. RANSOME. It would be a good action, Mr. Tanner—indeed, it would. Her father an’ me haven’t done nothing to deserve it, but we’ll be blamed for it just the same. It wouldn’t take you a minute to write it in the register, Mr. Tanner. Look at all the years we’ve bin goin’ to your church, and never asked you a favor before. TANNER. My good woman, I’m sorry; I’d like to help you, but I don’t see how I can. In the first place, don’t you see that you’re asking me to commit forgery? But what’s more important, you’re asking me to act against my own principles. I’ve been preaching sermons for years, and making a public stand too, against these hasty marriages that break up homes and lead to the divorce court—or worse. The church is trying to make marriage a thing sacred and apart, instead of the mockery it is in this country today. I sympathize with you. I know how hard it is. But for all I know, you may be asking me to help you thwart the will of God. MRS. RANSOME. The will of God? TANNER. Mind you, I don’t say that it is, Mrs. Ransome, but it may very well be the Hand of the Almighty. Your daughter and her young man, as she has confessed herself, have tried to use the marriage ceremony—a _holy_ ceremony, mind you—to cover up what they’ve done. MRS. RANSOME. Oh, don’t talk like that before her, Mr. Tanner. TANNER. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I can’t help you. It wouldn’t be _right_. MRS. RANSOME. But they was goin’ to get married, sir. You got to take that into consideration. My girl ain’t naturally bad. It isn’t as though she’d pick up any feller that happened to come along. Hundreds and thousands do it, sir, indeed they do, and most of them much worse than she and him, poor fellow. TANNER. Yes, there you are right. Thousands _do_ do it, and I’ve been making a stand against it in this neighborhood for years. I may seem hard, Mrs. Ransome, but I’m trying my best to be fair. I sincerely believe that no minister of the Gospel should ever legalize or condone—er—misconduct—that is, before marriage.