down!" he said, roughly. She had frightened him--and fear comes seldom
to men of his type. They feel it, when it does come, with an angry
distrust; they grow loud and brutal, in instinctive protest against it.
"Sit down!" he repeated. She obeyed him. "Haven't you got a word to say
to me?" he asked, with an oath. No! there she sat, immovable, reckless
how it ended--as only women can be, when women's minds are made up.
He took a turn in the summer-house and came back, and struck his hand
angrily on the rail of her chair. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want."

He took another turn. There was nothing for it but to give way on
his side, or run the risk of something happening which might cause an
awkward scandal, and come to his father's ears.

"Look here, Anne," he began, abruptly. "I have got something to
propose."

She looked up at him.

"What do you say to a private marriage?"

Without asking a single question, without making objections, she
answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken himself:

"I consent to a private marriage."

He began to temporize directly.

"I own I don't see how it's to be managed--"