“What I am going to ask you to do is this,” he said gravely, stopping in the road and looking older than she had ever seen him look before; “I want to make these separations impossible. I want you to come away with me, once and for all.”
“What? Now!” she cried, bewildered, stepping a pace or two back.
“Not now, but soon. In a few days—a week, perhaps.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Oh, I cannot!” she exclaimed, “it would never do.”
“But why, dear? It has been done before now.”
“What would they say?”
“That would not matter. You would be my own wife and no one could say or do anything.”
She made no reply and they walked on; her face was downcast. She clasped her hands more tightly in her muff and shivered.
“It would take a little time,” he went on; “I should have to get a special licence and go to London first. But in a week everything could be ready. We can be married in Hereford and then go straight away. Isoline, will you?”