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, taking" target="_blank" title="n.任务；事业；计划">undertaking. But
I had no other alternative to choose.

In those uncivilized days, the Marriage Act had not been passed,
and there was no convenient hymeneal registrar in England to

change a vagabondrunaway 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
Alicia'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

recognized position in society, I should have proposed to her to
run away with me alone. As it was, the very defenselessness 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 civilized life the next

morning. I was pleased to hear, when I knocked at the door, that
Alicia'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

conversion with Mrs. Baggs.
"Now, my own love," I said, 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 riverside. 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," she interposed quickly,

without raising her face.
"Enough to convince you that he was breaking the laws," I

suggested; "and, to make you, as his daughter, shrink from saying
'yes' to me when we sat together on the river bank?"

She did not answer. One of her arms, which was hanging over my
shoulder, stole round my neck, and clasped it gently.

"Since that time," I went on, "your father has compromised me. I
am in some danger, not much, from the law. I have no prospects

that are not of the most doubtful kind; and I have no excuse for
asking you to share them, except that I have fallen into my

present misfortune through trying to discover the obstacle that
kept us apart. If there is any protection in the world that you

can turn to, less doubtful than mine, I suppose I ought to say no
more, and leave the house. But if there should be none, surely I

am not so very selfish in asking you to take your chance with me?
I honestly believe that I shall have little difficulty, with

ordinary caution, in escaping from pursuit, and finding a safe
home somewhere to begin life in again with new interests. Will

you share it with me, Alicia? I can try no fresh persuasions---I
have no right, perhaps, in my present situation to have addressed

so many to you already."
Her other arm stole round my neck; she laid her cheek against

mine, and whispered--
"Be kind to me, Frank--I have nobody in the world who loves me

but you!"
I felt her tears on my face; my own eyes moistened as I tried to

answer her. We sat for some minutes in perfect silence--without
moving, without a thought beyond the moment. The rising of the

wind, and the splashing of the rain outside were the first sounds
that stirred me into action again.

I summoned my resolution, rose from the sofa, and in a few hasty
words told Alicia what I proposed for the next day, and mentioned

the hour at which I would come in the morning. As I had
anticipated, she seemed re lieved and reassured at the prospect

even of such slight sanction and encouragement, on the part of
another woman, as would be implied by the companionship of Mrs.

Baggs on the journey to Scotland.
The next and last difficulty I had to encounter was necessarily

connected with her father. He had never been very affectionate;
and he was now, for aught she or I knew to the contrary, parted

from her forever. Still, the instinctiverecognition of his
position made her shrink, at the last moment, when she spoke of

him, and thought of the serious nature of her engagement with me.
After some vain arguing and remonstrating, I contrived to quiet

her scruples, by promising that an address should be left at
Crickgelly, to which any second letter that might arrive from the

doctor could be forwarded. When I saw that this prospect of being
able to communicate with him, if he wrote or wished to see her,

had sufficientlycomposed her mind, I left the drawing-room. It
was vitally important that I should get back to the inn and make

the necessary arrangements for our departure the next morning,
before the primitive people of the place had retired to bed.

As I passed the back parlor door on my way out, I heard the voice
of Mrs. Baggs raised indignantly. The words "bottle!" "audacity!"

and "nerves!" reached my ear disjointedly. I called out "Good-by!
till to-morrow;" heard a responsive groan of disgust; then opened

the front door, and plunged out into the dark and rainy night.
It might have been the dropping of water from the cottage roofs

while I passed through the village, or the groundless alarm of my
own suspicious fancy, but I thought I was being followed as I

walked back to the inn. Two or three times I turned round
abruptly. If twenty men had been at my heels, it was too dark to

see them. I went on to the inn.
The people there were not gone to bed; and I sent for the

landlord to consult with him about a conveyance. Perhaps it was
my suspicious fancy again; but I thought his manner was altered.

He seemed half distrustful, half afraid of me, when I asked him
if there had been any signs, during my absence, of those two

gentlemen, for whom I had already inquired on arriving at his
door that evening. He gave an answer in the negative, looking

away from me while he spoke.
Thinking it advisable, on the whole, not to let him see that I

noticed a change in him, I proceeded at once to the question of
the conveyance, and was told that I could hire the landlord's

light cart, in which he was accustomed to drive to the market
town. I appointed an hour for starting the next day, and retired

at once to my bedroom. There my thoughts were enough. I was
anxious about Screw and the Bow Street runner. I was uncertain