David stopped here and looked down on his accounts again. Betsey, who sat at the opposite side of the table, with the strong light of the summer evening lighting up its old red cloth, returned to hers. Before she had accomplished another item, David resumed-- "And all this will take time; three or four months, perhaps. And so, Betsey--if you don't mind being hurried into it--I think we had better be married." "Be married!" echoed Betsey, dropping her book and her pencil. "Whatever do you mean?" "I mean what I say," was David's sententious answer; "I don't mean nothing else. You and me must be married." Betsey stared at him aghast. "Oh, David! how can you think of such a thing yet? It is not a month since your poor mother died." "That's just it, her being dead," said David. "Don't you see, Betsey, neither you nor me can go out of the house until somebody takes to it, or till something's settled; and, in short, folks might get saying things." Not for a full minute did she in the least comprehend his meaning. Then she burst into a passion of tears of anger; all her face aflame. "Oh! David, how can you speak so? who would dare to be so cruel?" "It's because I know the world better than you, and because I know how cruel it is, that I say it," added David. "Look here, Betsey, there's nobody left now to take care of you but me; and I _shall_ take care of you, and I'm saying what's right. I shall buy a licence; it's a dreadful deal of money, when asking in church does as well, but that takes longer, and I'll spend the money cheerfully, for your sake. We'll go quietly to church next Sunday morning, and nobody need know, till it's all over, what we've been for. Unless you like to tell the servant, and the parson and his wife in the drawing-room. Perhaps you'd better." "But, David----" "Now, where's the good of contending?" he interrupted; "you don't want to give me up, do you?" "You know I don't, David." "Very well, then." Betsey held out for some time longer, and it was only because she saw no other opening out of the dilemma--for, as David said, neither of them could leave the house if it was to go on--that she gave in at last. David at once entered upon sundry admonitions as to future economy, warning her that he intended they should live upon next to nothing for years and years to come. He did not intend to spend all his income, and be reduced to letting lodgings, or what not, when he should get old. And a day or two after the marriage had really taken place, Betsey wrote a very deprecatory note to Charlotte, and another to Mrs. Arkell, with the news. But she did not give them an intimation of it beforehand. So that even had Charlotte wished to make any attempt to prevent it, she had not the opportunity. And from thenceforth she washed her hands of Betsey Dundyke, even more completely than she had done of Betsey Travice.