his own hand. It is written and
acknowledged by the other party in her own hand--"

"But not _signed_!" I broke in. "See, it is not _signed_. She said she
would sign it one letter each week--weeks and weeks--until at last,
this, which was only our engagement, should with the last letter make
our marriage. Gentlemen," I said to them, "it was an honest contract. It
was all the formality we could have, all the ceremony we could have. It
was all that we could do. I stand before you promised to two women.
Before God I was promised to one. I loved her. I could do no more--"

"It was enough," said Doctor Bond, dryly, taking snuff. "It was a
wedding."

"Impossible!" declared Colonel Sheraton.

"Impossible? Not in the least," said the doctor. "It can be invalid only
upon one ground. It might be urged that the marriage was not
consummated. But in the courts that would be a matter of proof. Whatever
our young friend here might say, a court would say that consummation was
very probable.

"I say, as this stands, the contract is a definite one, agreeing to do a
definite thing, namely, to enter into the state of marriage. The
question of the uncompleted signature does not invalidate it, nor indeed
come into the matter at all. It is only a question whether the
signature, so far as it goes, means the identity of the Ellen Meriwether
who wrote the clause preceding it. It is a question of identification
solely. Nothing appears on this contract stipulating that she must sign
her full name before the marriage can take place. That verbal agreement,
which Mr. Cowles mentions, of signing it letter by letter, does not in
law affect a written agreement. This written contract must, in the law,
be construed just as It stands, and under its own phrasing, by its own
inherent evidence. The obvious and apparent evidence is that the person
beginning this signature was Ellen Meriwether--the same who wrote the
last clause of the contract. The handwriting is the same--the
supposition is that it is the same, and the burden of proof would lie on
the one denying it.

"Gentlemen," he went on, taking a turn, hands behind back, his big red
kerchief hanging from his coat tails, "I take Mr. Cowles' word as to
acts before and after this contract. I think he has shown to us that he
is a gentleman. In that world, very different from this world, he acted
like a gentleman. In that life he was for the time freed of the covenant
of society. Now, in this life, th