'I can't say that I do,' said the Captain. At the same time the Captain
did remember very well what those last words had been.
'I am so glad to see you, so delighted to see you, if--if--if--,' and
then she paused, for with all her courage she hardly dared to ask her
nephew whether he had come there with the express purport of asking Miss
Woolsworthy to marry him.
To tell the truth--for there is no room for mystery within the limits of
this short story,--to tell, I say, at a word the plain and simple truth,
Captain Broughton had already asked that question. On the day before he
left Oxney Colne he had in set terms proposed to the parson's daughter,
and indeed the words, the hot and frequent words, which previously to
that had fallen like sweetest honey into the ears of Patience
Woolsworthy, had made it imperative on him to do so. When a man in such
a place as that has talked to a girl of love day after day, must not he
talk of it to some definite purpose on the day on which he leaves her?
Or if he do not, must he not submit to be regarded as false, selfish,
and almost fraudulent? Captain Broughton, however, had asked the
question honestly and truly.
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