nly to drive out, but even to walk short distances, and to
visit a few of her special friends such as Mr. Kenyon and Mr. Boyd.
Accordingly it was agreed that at the end of the summer they should
be married, and leave England for Italy before the cold weather should
return. The uselessness of asking her father's consent was so evident,
and the certainty that it would only result in the exclusion of Mr.
Browning from the house so clear, that no attempt was made to obtain
it. Only her two sisters were aware of what was going on; but even
they were not informed of the final arrangements for the marriage, in
order that they might not be involved in their father's anger when it
should become known. For the same reason the secret was kept from so
close a friend of both parties as Mr. Kenyon; though both he and Mr.
Boyd, and possibly also Mrs. Jameson, had suspicions amounting to
different degrees of certainty as to the real state of affairs. It had
been intended that they should wait until the end of September, but
a project for a temporary removal of the family into the country
precipitated matters; and on September 12, accompanied only by her
maid, Wilson, Miss Barrett slipped from the house and was married to
Robert Browning in Marylebone Church.[143] The associations which that
ponderous edifice has gained from this act for all lovers of English
poetry tempt one to forgive its unromantic appearance, and to remember
rather the pilgrimages which Robert Browning on his subsequent visits
to England never failed to pay to its threshold.

[Footnote 143: Mrs. Sutherland Orr says that the marriage took place
in St. Pancras Church; but this is a mistake, as the parish register
of St. Marylebone proves.]

For a week after the marriage Mrs. Browning--by which more familiar
name we now have the right to call her--remained in her father's
house; her husband refraining from seeing her, since he could not now
ask for her by her proper name without betraying their secret.
Then, on September 19, accompanied once more by her maid and the
ever-beloved Flushie, she left her home, to which she was never
to return, crossed the Channel with her husband to Havre, and so
travelled on to Paris. Her father's anger, if not loud, was deep and
unforgiving. From that moment he cast her off and disowned her. He
would not read or open her letters; he would not see her when she
returned to England. Even the birth of her child brought no relenting;
he exp