‘You can’t. Here we are, and it is snowing, actually,’ she added, as she let down the glass, and looked out. ‘Heavy snow! How on earth will you get home?’ ‘I’ll walk, of course,’ said Otho, jumping out, and holding out his hand to her. ‘Walk!’ repeated Magdalen, pausing before she got out, to expostulate with him—‘walk over three miles in this driving snow—and on such a road! Indeed, you must not. If you wait, they will get you a gig, or a dogcart, or something; it will be lighter than the brougham, and you could put it up at your place till to-morrow.’ ‘I’ll walk, I tell you. Come out; you’ll get your death of cold, sitting there,’ said Otho, gruffly and impatiently. ‘What’s a few flakes of snow to me, now? Haven’t I been in a fever all night? I tell you, I want to work it off, so let me alone.’ She had got out of the carriage, and they stood on the steps. She was going to expostulate again, but Otho told the men to drive to the stables, he was going to walk home; and they, nothing willing to turn out again on such a night,—a contingency which they had already discussed,—obeyed with alacrity. The two figures, dark and shrouded, stood within the porch, and Magdalen stretched out her hand towards the bell. ‘Stop a minute!’ said Otho. ‘Heugh! what a wind!’ as a screaming blast from the north-west whistled past the vestibule. ‘Otho, you must not walk home——’ ‘Be quiet, I tell you; let me alone! If I’ve a fancy, I’ll sleep in the vestibule, or anywhere I choose. Now, Magdalen,’—he seized her hands in a grasp that hurt them,—‘swear that you will not go back from what you have said to-night’ ‘I swear I will not, Otho.’ ‘And that when the time comes—we shall both know when it does—you’ll marry me, and follow me, as truly as I’ll go on loving you.’ ‘Yes, I swear I will.’ ‘And that whatever happens, you are mine—you don’t cut yourself adrift from me as you did from Michael Langstroth.’ ‘There is no need for me to swear that, for I could not, if I would.’ ‘All right! give me a kiss, and let me get home.’ Magdalen put her two hands on his shoulders, and said— ‘I have sworn a good many things to you; I want you to swear nothing to me; but remember this, whatever wrong you do me, directly or indirectly, from this time forward, you do to your _wife_, for you are mine now, as much as I am yours. Good night!’ She kissed him on his mouth, and was turning away. Otho suddenly put his arm about her neck, laid his head for a moment on her breast, and said in a rough, broken voice— ‘You have been very good to me, and very patient with me, Magdalen. You’ll get your reward, I hope.’ Then he turned on his heel, rammed his cap on to his head, and plunged into the darkness and the snow, which drove blindingly in his face. He had chosen to walk—persisted in walking, perhaps with some idea of cooling, in the wintry blast, the fever of his hot heart; for it was hot, and it beat and tossed with restless pain.