"It's not!" Which was true enough--it was a different thing entirely. "Ellen, can you not see that I was never more in earnest in my life. If you do not marry me, something tells me that that woman will, and for all I know that wretched parent of hers may be the occupant of a dissenting pulpit; he looks disreputable enough for anything. What with her and her father, and my aunt, I am as a reed in their hands. I do entreat you--be my wife." The offer was not put in the most flattering form. Still, it was an offer. "If you really want me--" began Miss Bayley. "Want you! I want nothing so much in all the world." "And if you think I can be of use to you in the parish--" "Parish! it's not the parish I'm thinking of, it's--it's that wretched woman." Miss Bayley did not like this way of putting it at all. "I will consider what you say, Mr Macleod, and will let you have an answer--say in a month." "In a month!" the curate was aghast. "I want your answer now. Ellen, I do entreat you, if you do not wish to see me disgraced in the face of all the world, promise to be my wife." "But, Mr Macleod, you do not even pretend to care for me." "Care for you! I care for you more than I ever cared for any woman yet." "Then in that case"--the lady was a little coy--"it shall be just as you will." At this point the ordinary lover would have taken her in his arms, and here would follow a number of crosses denoting what we have seen termed "osculatory concussions." But the Rev. Alan was not an ordinary lover at all. He continued his frenzied pacing round the room. "It is not enough to promise to be my wife, you must be my wife." "Mr Macleod, what do you mean?" "Miss Bayley--Ellen--those two persons are at the rectory, awaiting my arrival at this moment. She is a disreputable woman, he is a ruffianly man. They are quite capable of coercing me into some dreadful entanglement from which I may find it impossible to release myself. My only hope lies in an immediate marriage." "I do not understand you in the least." "Then let me endeavour to make myself quite plain. I will not return to the rectory; you will put on your hat and jacket and come up at once with me to town. I will get a special licence. And we will be married before anyone has an inkling of what it is that we intend." "Mr Macleod, is it an elopement you propose?" "Ellen, it is." The little man was shaking like a leaf. "I never heard of such a thing in my life." "Nor did I dream that I should make such a proposition to a living woman--but needs must when the devil drives." The lady began to cry. "Alan, I must say you have not a flattering way of putting things." "What avails flattery at such a moment as this. For Heaven's sake, don't cry. I have heard you say yourself that you don't believe in long engagements." "Yes--but when one has not been engaged five minutes!"