"Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that you can show me a certificate and a witness to your marriage with William Grant ?" Peggy looked doggedly down at the floor and said, in the tones of one who is repeating the burial service or some other solemn function, "I can prove the marriage." Blake was puzzled.

He had known the mountain folk all his life, and knew that for uneducated people--or perhaps because they were uneducated people--they were surprisingly clever liars.

But he never dreamt that any of them could hoodwink him; so he put Peggy once more through the whole story,--made her describe all her actions on the day of the wedding, where she stood, where the witness stood, what the parson said, what her husband said.

He went through the whole thing, and could see no flaw in it.

He knew that Peggy would not scruple to lie to him; but, with the contempt of a clever man, he felt satisfied that he could soon upset any concocted story.