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“In one sense, certainly, it would be a leap upwards. To be the wife of the man I loved; to have the privilege of holding his happiness in my hand; to know that I was his own–the companion whom he had chosen out of all the world–that would, indeed, be a leap upwards; a leap almost to heaven, if all that were so. But if you mean upwards in any other sense–“

“I was thinking of the social scale.”

“Then, Captain Broughton, your thoughts were doing me dishonour.”

“Doing you dishonour!”

“Yes, doing me dishonour. That your father is, in the world’s esteem, a greater man than mine is doubtless true enough. That you, as a man, are richer than I am as a woman, is doubtless also true. But you dishonour me, and yourself also, if these things can weigh with you now.”

“Patience,–I think you can hardly know what words you are saying to me.”

“Pardon me, but I think I do. Nothing that you can give me–no gifts of that description–can weigh aught against that which I am giving you. If you had all the wealth and rank of the greatest lord in the land, it would count as nothing in such a scale. If–as I have not doubted–if in return for my heart you have given me yours, then–then- -then you have paid me fully. But when gifts such as those are going, nothing else can count even as a make-weight.”

“I do not quite understand you,” he answered, after a pause. “I fear you are a little high-flown.” And then, while the evening was still early, they walked back to the parsonage almost without another word.

Captain Broughton at this time had only one full day more to remain at Oxney Colne. On the afternoon following that he was to go as far as Exeter, and thence return to London. Of course, it was to be expected that the wedding day would be fixed before he went, and much had been said about it during the first day or two of his engagement. Then he had pressed for an early time, and Patience, with a girl’s usual diffidence, had asked for some little delay. But now nothing was said on the subject; and how was it probable that such a matter could be settled after such a conversation as that which I have related? That evening, Miss Le Smyrger asked whether the day had been fixed. “No,” said Captain Broughton, harshly; “nothing has been fixed.” “But it will be arranged before you go?” “Probably not,” he said; and then the subject was dropped for the time.

“John,” she said, just before she went to bed, “if there be anything wrong between you and Patience, I conjure you to tell me.”

“You had better ask her,” he replied. “I can tell you nothing.”

On the following morning he was much surprised by seeing Patience on the gravel path before Miss Le Smyrger’s gate immediately after breakfast. He went to the door to open it for her, and she, as she gave him her hand, told him that she came up to speak to him. There was no hesitation in her manner, nor any look of anger in her face. But there was in her gait and form, in her voice and countenance, a fixedness of purpose which he had never seen before, or at any rate had never acknowledged.

“Certainly,” said he. “Shall I come out with you, or will you come up stairs?”

“We can sit down in the summer-house,” she said; and thither they both went.

“Captain Broughton,” she said–and she began her task the moment that they were both seated–“you and I have engaged ourselves as man and wife, but perhaps we have been over rash.”

“How so?” said he.

“It may be–and indeed I will say more–it is the case that we have made this engagement without knowing enough of each other’s character.”