"John," she said, just before she went to bed, "if there be anything
wrong between you and Patience, I conjure you to tell me."

"You had better ask her," he replied. "I can tell you nothing."

On the following morning he was much surprised by seeing Patience on
the gravel path before Miss Le Smyrger's gate immediately after
breakfast. He went to the door to open it for her, and she, as she
gave him her hand, told him that she came up to speak to him. There
was no hesitation in her manner, nor any look of anger in her face.
But there was in her gait and form, in her voice and countenance, a
fixedness of purpose which he had never seen before, or at any rate had
never acknowledged.

"Certainly," said he. "Shall I come out with you, or will you come up
stairs?"

"We can sit down in the summer-house," she said; and thither they both
went.

"Captain Broughton," she said--and she began her task the moment that
they were both seated--"you and I have engaged ourselves as man and
wife, but perhaps we have been over rash."

"How so?" said he.

"It may be--and indeed I will say more--it is the case that we have
made this engagement without knowing enough of each other's character."

"I have not thought so."