stification; and this
she determined that he should know at once, at all hazards.

'It was through you in the first place that I did look into your
grounds!' she said excitedly. 'It was your presumption that caused me to
go there. I should not have thought of such a thing else. If you had
not said what you did say I never should have thought of you or Farnfield
either--Farnfield might have been in Kamtschatka for all I cared.'

'I hope sincerely that I never said anything to disturb you?'

'Yes, you did--not to me, but to somebody,' said Ethelberta, with her
eyes over-full of retained tears.

'What have I said to somebody that can be in the least objectionable to
you?' inquired Neigh, with much concern.

'You said--you said, you meant to marry me--just as if I had no voice in
the matter! And that annoyed me, and made me go there out of curiosity.'

Neigh changed colour a little. 'Well, I did say it: I own that I said
it,' he replied at last. Probably he knew enough of her nature not to
feel long disconcerted by her disclosure, however she might have become
possessed of the information. The explanation was certainly a great
excuse to her curiosity; but if Ethelberta had tried she could not have
given him a better ground for making light of her objections to his suit.
'I felt that I must marry you, that we were predestined to marry ages
ago, and I feel it still!' he continued, with listless ardour. 'You seem
to regret your interest in Farnfield; but to me it is a charm, and has
been ever since I heard of it.'

'If you only knew all!' she said helplessly, showing, without perceiving
it, an unnecessary humility in the remark, since there was no more reason
just then that she should go into details about her life than that he
should about his. But melancholy and mistaken thoughts of herself as a
counterfeit had brought her to this.

'I do not wish to know more,' said Neigh.

'And would you marry any woman off-hand, without being thoroughly
acquainted with her circumstances?' she said, looking at him curiously,
and with a little admiration, for his unconscionably phlegmatic treatment
of her motives in going to Farnfield had a not unbecoming daring about it
in Ethelberta's eye.

'I would marry a woman off-hand when that woman is you. I would make you
mine this moment did I dare; or, to speak with absolute accuracy, within
twenty-four hours. Do assent to it, dear Mrs. Petherwin, and let me be
sure of you f