“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 favorable opinion which Miss Alicia 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 Alicia 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 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.  As 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.