The young man sat on the settle with his head in his hands and prayed God to deliver his soul from the woman’s soul, and her body unto his. At last he spoke to her, his face turned away from her. He told her that she knew why he was come. He wished to marry her, and that he would be to her a true and loving husband. No, she said, she could not marry him. He was surprised, for Mr. Bilby had told no one of the young woman’s aversion to marriage. He had understood that he had only to ask and she would assent. He told her that it was all settled—the very spot on which their house should be built. How could she now so coldly say no? She only said again that she could not marry him—nor any other. ‘If that is so,’ he said, ‘I’ll take my hat and go.’ But why, if she had no idea of marrying him, had she so kept him at her heels? She had not kept him at her heels. She was always trying to rid herself of him. She knew that was not true. The very way she drew back from him was the surest encouragement a man could have. She said she thought he was talking nonsense. Her eyes glittered at him, round and bright in the firelight, like a cat’s. He was afraid. He got up. He said again that he would take his hat and go. ‘I wish you would,’ said Doll. They could not find his hat. It seems that, while Doll was straightening herself and ordering the house (Titus at the moment ratting in the cellar), she had by chance picked up his hat, with many other things, such as the sooty blankets, and had stuck them under her own bed. So now they could not find his hat. The young fellow was afraid, and now, as never before, he believed she was a witch. His blood pumped through him as though about to burst the veins; he knew that she wished this hat to work further charms upon him. But if she were so set upon charming him, making him her slave, why would she now have none of him? Why should she torture him, making him love her past all human endurance, and yet now so coldly dismiss him? Doll said she was very sorry about the hat. ‘Oh, it is not the hat,’ he cried in despair, his head again in his two hands, ‘but, my dear Doll, why will you so torture me? Have I ever been anything but kind and respectful to you? Look what you have done. A year ago I was twice the man I now am. You have done it. You’ve sucked the strength and manhood out of my veins.’ Then he talked strangely so that she could not at first understand him. At last she understood him well. He believed that she had cast a witch spell on him, and had thus made him love her so beyond all reason. For, as he frankly told her, she really was not so wonderful nor half so beautiful, etc., as he had come to think her. He said he could remember back three years ago when he thought her a scrawny, rather ugly, little thing with too big a mouth.