She paid her visit, remaining upwards of an hour with the old bedridden mother of the farmer of Helpholme.  ‘God bless you, my darling!’ said the old lady as she left her; ’and send you someone to make your own path bright and happy through the world.’  These words were still ringing in her ears with all their significance as she saw John Broughton waiting for her at the first stile which she had to pass after leaving the farmer’s haggard.

‘Patty,’ he said, as he took her hand, and held it close within both his own, ‘what a chase I have had after you!’

‘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 tomorrow 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 today, 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 post-chaise, 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 have I 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 mightyness 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?’