‘Not very well, dear Mr Boffin; I have fluttered myself by being—perhaps foolishly—uneasy and anxious. I have been waiting for you some time. Can I speak to you?’
Mr Boffin proposed that Mrs Lammle should drive on to his house, a few hundred yards further.
‘I would rather not, Mr Boffin, unless you particularly wish it. I feel the difficulty and delicacy of the matter so much that I would rather avoid speaking to you at your own home. You must think this very strange?’
Mr Boffin said no, but meant yes.
‘It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all my friends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot bear to run the risk of forfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of duty. I have asked my husband (my dear Alfred, Mr Boffin) whether it is the cause of duty, and he has most emphatically said Yes. I wish I had asked him sooner. It would have spared me much distress.’
(‘Can this be more dropping down upon me!’ thought Mr Boffin, quite bewildered.)
‘It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr Boffin. Alfred said, “Don’t come back, Sophronia, until you have seen Mr Boffin, and told him all. Whatever he may think of it, he ought certainly to know it.” Would you mind coming into the carriage?’
Mr Boffin answered, ‘Not at all,’ and took his seat at Mrs Lammle’s side.
‘Drive slowly anywhere,’ Mrs Lammle called to her coachman, ‘and don’t let the carriage rattle.’
‘It must be more dropping down, I think,’ said Mr Boffin to himself. ‘What next?’