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“And who asked you, Captain Broughton?” she answered, smiling. “If the journey was too much for your poor London strength, could you not have waited till to-morrow morning, when you would have found me at the parsonage?” But she did not draw her hand away from him, or in any way pretend that he had not a right to accost her as a lover.

“No, I could not wait. I am more eager to see those I love than you seem to be.”

“How do you know whom I love, or how eager I might be to see them? There is an old woman there whom I love, and I have thought nothing of this walk with the object of seeing her.” And now, slowly drawing her hand away from him, she pointed to the farmhouse which she had left.

“Patty,” he said, after a minute’s pause, during which she had looked full into his face with all the force of her bright eyes; “I have come from London to-day, straight down here to Oxney, and from my aunt’s house close upon your footsteps after you, to ask you that one question–Do you love me?”

“What a Hercules!” she said, again laughing. “Do you really mean that you left London only this morning? Why, you must have been five hours in a railway carriage and two in a postchaise, not to talk of the walk afterwards. You ought to take more care of yourself, Captain Broughton!”

He would have been angry with her–for he did not like to be quizzed– had she not put her hand on his arm as she spoke, and the softness of her touch had redeemed the offence of her words.

“All that I have done,” said he, “that I may hear one word from you.”

“That any word of mine should have such potency! But let us walk on, or my father will take us for some of the standing stones of the moor. How have you found your aunt? If you only knew the cares that have sat on her dear shoulders for the last week past, in order that your high mightiness might have a sufficiency to eat and drink in these desolate half-starved regions!”

“She might have saved herself such anxiety. No one can care less for such things than I do.”

“And yet I think I have heard you boast of the cook of your club.” And then again there was silence for a minute or two.

“Patty,” said he, stopping again in the path; “answer my question. I have a right to demand an answer. Do you love me?”

“And what if I do? What if I have been so silly as to allow your perfections to be too many for my weak heart? What then, Captain Broughton?”

“It cannot be that you love me, or you would not joke now.”

“Perhaps not, indeed,” she said. It seemed as though she were resolved not to yield an inch in her own humour. And then again they walked on.

“Patty,” he said once more, “I shall get an answer from you to-night,– this evening; now, during this walk, or I shall return to-morrow, and never revisit this spot again.”

“Oh, Captain Broughton, how should we ever manage to live without you?”

“Very well,” he said; “up to the end of this walk I can hear it all;– and one word spoken then will mend it all.”

During the whole of this time she felt that she was ill-using him. She knew that she loved him with all her heart; that it would nearly kill her to part with him; that she had heard his renewed offer with an ecstacy of joy. She acknowledged to herself that he was giving proof of his devotion as strong as any which a girl could receive from her lover. And yet she could hardly bring herself to say the word he longed to hear. That word once said, and then she knew that she must succumb to her love for ever! That word once said, and there would be nothing for her but to spoil him with her idolatry! That word once said, and she must continue to repeat it into his ears, till perhaps he might be tired of hearing it! And now he had threatened her, and how could she speak after that? She certainly would not speak it unless he asked her again without such threat. And so they walked on in silence.