runs away without a word to me beforehand,
and writes me a trumpery note, without a
date to it, without a farthing of money in it,
telling me nothing! Look at my confidence
in him, and then look at the way he's treated
me in return. What woman's nerves can
stand that? Don't keep fidgeting with the
bottle! Pass it this way, Mr. Softly, or
you'll break it, and drive me distracted."

"He has no excuse ma'am," I said. "But
will you allow me to change the subject, as
I am pressed for time? You appear to
be so well acquainted with the favourable
opinion which Miss Laura and I entertain of
each other, that I hope it will be no fresh
shock to your nerves, if I inform you, in plain
words, that I have come to Crickgelly to
marry her."

"Marry her! marry——If you don't
leave off fidgeting with the bottle, Mr.
Softly, and change the subject directly, I
shall ring the bell."

"Hear me out, ma'am, and then ring if you
like. If you persist, however, in considering
yourself still the confidential servant of a
felon who is now flying for his life, and if
you decline allowing the young lady to act as
she wishes, I will not be so rude as to hint
that—as she is of age—she may walk out of
this house with me, whenever she likes, without
your having the power to prevent her; but, I
will politely ask instead, what you would
propose to do with her, in the straitened
position as to money in which she and you
are likely to be placed? You can't find her
father to give her to; and, if you could, who
would be the best protector for her? The
doctor, who is the principal criminal in the
eye of the law, or I, who am only the
unwilling accomplice? He is known to the
Bow Street runners—I am not. There is a
reward for the taking of him, and none for
the taking of me. He has no respectable
relatives and friends, I have plenty. Every
way my chances are the best; and
consequently I am, every way, the fittest person
to trust her to. Don't you see that?"

Mrs. Baggs did not immediately answer.
She snatched the bottle out of my hands
—drank off another dram, shook her head at
me, and ejaculated lamentably: "My nerves,
my nerves! what a heart of stone he must
have to presume on my poor nerves!"

"Give me one minute more," I went on.
I propose to take you and Laura to-morrow
morning to Scotland. Pray don't groan!
I only suggest the journey with a
matrimonial object. In Scotland, Mrs. Baggs,
if a man and woman accept each other as
husband and wife, before one witness, it is a
lawful marriage; and that kind of wedding
is, as you must see plainly enough, the only
safe refuge for a bridegroom in my situation.
If you consent to come with us to Scotland,
and serve as witness to the marriage, I shall
be delighted to acknowledge my sense of your
kindness in the eloquent language of the Bank
of England, as expressed to the world in
general on the surface of a five-pound note."

I cautiously snatched away the brandy
bottle as I spoke, and was in the drawing-
room with it in an instant. I suppose Mrs.
Baggs tried to follow me, for I heard the door
rattle, as if she had got out of her chair, and
suddenly slipped back into it again. I felt
certain of her deciding to help us, if she was
only sober enough to reflect on what I had
said to her. The journey to Scotland was a
tedious, and perhaps a dangerous, undertaking.
But I had no other alternative to choose.
In those uncivilised days, the Marriage Act
had not been passed, and there was no
convenient hymeneal registrar in England to
change a vagabond runaway couple into a
respectable man and wife at a moment's
notice. The trouble and expense of taking
Mrs. Baggs with us, I encountered, of course,
solely out of regard for Laura's natural
prejudices. She had led precisely that kind of
life which makes any woman but a bad one
morbidly sensitive on the subject of small
proprieties. If she had been a girl with a
recognised position in society, I should have
proposed to her to run away with me alone.
As it was, the very defencelessness of her
situation gave her, in my opinion, the right
to expect from me even the absurdest sacrifices
to the narrowest conventionalities. Mrs.
Baggs was not quite so sober in her habits,
perhaps, as matrons in general are expected
to be: but, for my particular purpose, this
was only a slight blemish; it takes so little,
after all, to represent the abstract principle
of propriety in the short-sighted eye of the
world.

As I reached the drawing-room door, I
looked at my watch. Nine o'clock! and
nothing done yet to facilitate our escaping
from Crickgelly to the regions of civilised
life the next morning. I was pleased to
hear, when I knocked at the door, that
Laura's voice sounded firmer as she told me
to come in. She was more confused than
astonished or frightened when I sat down by
her on the sofa, and repeated the principal
topics of my conversation with Mrs. Baggs.

"Now, my own love," said I, in conclusion
—suiting my gestures, it is unnecessary to
say, to the tenderness of my language—
"there is not the least doubt that Mrs.
Baggs will end by agreeing to my proposals.
Nothing remains, therefore, but for you to
give me the answer now, which I have been
waiting for ever since that last day when we
met by the river side. I did not know then
what the motive was for your silence and
distress. I know now, and I love you better
after that knowledge than I did before it."

Her head dropped into its former position
on my bosom, and she murmured a few
words, but too faintly for me to hear them.

"You knew more about your father, then,
than I did?" I whispered.

"Less than you have told me since,"