Yet to know the truth of this, I said a prayer upon my knees in
the wet boat while my teeth chattered, and before the end of my prayer
had come I was thinking of my wife's pure name, and how this would spot
her as with stains of blood unless I could explain it.
"When I reached this stage of my exalted sensibilities I was nearly
crazed. There had been no witness of our marriage except the minister,
and he was already dead. We had been married at the country parsonage of
an old retired minister beyond Oxford church, on the road from Frankford
town, as we drove out one afternoon, and I prevailed with my
conscientious wife to yield her scruples to our heart's necessity.
'Great God!' I thought aloud--for none could hear me there--'how
dreadfully that secret marriage will compromise my wife! Who will
believe us without a witness of what I must assert--a story so
improbable that I would not believe it myself? I must say that I married
my wife secretly from my father's house, confessing deceit for both of
us, and with Agnes's religious professions, a sin in the church's
estimation. If there could be an excuse for me, the strict people of
Kensington will accord none to her. They will charge on her maturer mind
the whole responsibility, paint her in the colors of ingratitude, and
find in her greatest poverty the principal motive.
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