Patience, however, never put off anything, and therefore at six
o'clock, when her father had finished his slender modicum of toddy, she
tied on her hat and went on her walk. She started with a quick step,
and left no word to say by which route she would go. As she passed up
along the little lane which led towards Oxney Combe, she would not even
look to see if he was coming towards her; and when she left the road,
passing over a stone stile into a little path which ran first through
the upland fields, and then across the moor ground towards Helpholme,
she did not look back once, or listen for his coming step.

She paid her visit, remaining upwards of an hour with the old bedridden
mother of the tenant of Helpholme. "God bless you, my darling!" said
the old woman as she left her; "and send you some one 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 to-morrow 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."