by these same laws—­when a man in the lifetime of his wife marries another woman, the said woman being in ignorance of the existence of the said wife, shall be held guiltless by the law, and her child or children, if she have any by the said marriage, shall be the legitimate offspring of the mother, legally entitled to bear her name and inherit her estates.  That fits precisely Nora’s case.  Her son is legitimate.  If she had in her own right an estate worth a billion, that child would be her heir-at-law.  She had nothing but her good name!  Her son has a right to inherit that—­unspotted, Hannah! mind, unspotted!  Your proper way will be to proceed against Herman Brudenell for bigamy, call me for a witness, establish the fact of Nora’s marriage, rescue her memory and her child’s birth from the slightest shadow of reproach, and let the consequences fall where they should fall, upon the head of the man!  They will not be more serious than he deserves.  If he can prove what he asserts—­that he himself was in equal ignorance with Nora of the existence of his first wife, he will be honorably acquitted in the court, though of course severely blamed by the community.  Come, Hannah, shall we go to Baymouth to-morrow about this business?”

Hannah was sobbing as if her heart would break.

“How glad I would be to clear Nora and her child from shame, no one but the Searcher of Hearts can know!  But I dare not!  I am bound by a vow! a solemn vow made to the dying!  Poor girl! with her last breath she besought me not to expose Mr. Brudenell, and not to breathe one word of his marriage with her to any living soul!” she cried.

“And you were mad enough to promise!”

“I would rather have bitten my tongue off than have used it in such a fatal way!  But she was dying fast, and praying to me with her uplifted eyes and clasped hands and failing breath to spare Herman Brudenell.  I had no power to refuse her—­my heart was broken.  So I bound my soul by a vow to be silent.  And I must keep my sacred promise made to the dying; I must keep it though, till the Judgment Day that shall set all things right, Nora Worth, if thought of it all, must be considered a fallen girl and her son the child of sin!” cried Hannah, breaking into a passion of tears and sobs.

“The devotion of woman passes the comprehension of man,” said the minister reflectively.  “But in sacrificing herself thus, had she no thought of the effect upon the future of her child?”

“She said he was a boy; his mother would soon be forgotten; he would be my nephew, and I was respected,” sobbed Hannah.

“In a word, she was a special pleader in the interest of the man whose reckless haste had destroyed her!”

“Yes; that was it! that was it!  Oh, my Nora! oh, my young sister! it was hard to see you die! hard to see you covered up in the coffin! but it is harder still to know that people will speak ill of you in your grave, and I cannot convince them that they are wrong!” said Hannah, wringing her hands in a frenzy of despair.