The winter of 1845-6 was an exceptionally mild one, and she suffered less than usual; and in the spring of 1846 her lover claimed her promise.  Throughout the summer she continued to gain strength, being able, not only to drive out, but even to walk short distances, and to visit a few of her special friends such as Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Boyd.  Accordingly it was agreed that at the end of the summer they should be married, and leave England for Italy before the cold weather should return.  The uselessness of asking her father’s consent was so evident, and the certainty that it would only result in the exclusion of Mr. Browning from the house so clear, that no attempt was made to obtain it.  Only her two sisters were aware of what was going on; but even they were not informed of the final arrangements for the marriage, in order that they might not be involved in their father’s anger when it should become known.  For the same reason the secret was kept from so close a friend of both parties as Mr. Kenyon; though both he and Mr. Boyd, and possibly also Mrs. Jameson, had suspicions amounting to different degrees of certainty as to the real state of affairs.  It had been intended that they should wait until the end of September, but a project for a temporary removal of the family into the country precipitated matters; and on September 12, accompanied only by her maid, Wilson, Miss Barrett slipped from the house and was married to Robert Browning in Marylebone Church.[143] The associations which that ponderous edifice has gained from this act for all lovers of English poetry tempt one to forgive its unromantic appearance, and to remember rather the pilgrimages which Robert Browning on his subsequent visits to England never failed to pay to its threshold.

[Footnote 143:  Mrs. Sutherland Orr says that the marriage took place in St. Pancras Church; but this is a mistake, as the parish register of St. Marylebone proves.]

For a week after the marriage Mrs. Browning—­by which more familiar name we now have the right to call her—­remained in her father’s house; her husband refraining from seeing her, since he could not now ask for her by her proper name without betraying their secret.  Then, on September 19, accompanied once more by her maid and the ever-beloved Flushie, she left her home, to which she was never to return, crossed the Channel with her husband to Havre, and so travelled on to Paris.  Her father’s anger, if not loud, was deep and unforgiving.  From that moment he cast her off and disowned her.  He would not read or open her letters; he would not see her when she returned to England.  Even the birth of her child brought no relenting; he expressed no sympathy or anxiety, he would not look upon its face.  He died as he lived, unrelenting, cut off by his own unbending anger from a daughter who could with difficulty bring herself to speak a harsh word of him, even to her most intimate friends.