“Look here, Anne,” he began, abruptly. “I have got something to propose.”

She looked up at him.

“What do you say to a private marriage?”

Without asking a single question, without making objections, she answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken himself:

“I consent to a private marriage.”

He began to temporize directly.

“I own I don’t see how it’s to be managed—”

She stopped him there.

“I do!”

“What!” he cried out, suspiciously. “You have thought of it yourself, have you?”