“I’ll go off to the rector directly.” He was like Dash now, when a feint had been made of throwing the stone: off on the moment—yet with a sense that all was not well.
“Oh! stop, you——!” Whatever the noun was, Patty managed to swallow it. “Come back,” she cried, as she might have cried to Dash. “Don’t you see? The rector; he’s the last man in the world.”
“Why?” cried Gervase. “He knows me, and you, and everything.”
“He knows—a deal too much,” said Patty; “he’d go and tell it all at the Hall, and make them send for the Lord Chancellor, or whatever it is.”
Poor Gervase trembled a little. “Couldn’t we run away, Patty, you and me together?” he said humbly; “I know them that have done that.”
“And have all the parish say I’m not married at all, and be treated like a—— wherever I showed my head. No, thank you, Mr. Gervase Piercey. I don’t think enough of you for that.”
“You would think enough of Roger for that,” cried poor Gervase, stung to the heart.
“Roger!” she cried, spinning round upon him with a flush on her face. “Roger would have had the banns up long before this, if I had ever said as much to him.”
“The banns!” cried Gervase. “Ah, now I know! that’s the clerk!” The stone was thrown at last. “They’ll be up,” he said, waving his hand to her as he looked back, “before you know where you are!”
It was all that Patty could do to stop him, to bring him back before he was out of hearing. Dash never rushed more determinedly after his stone.