Before the house was astir, I got her away (by the workmen’s train) to a large manufacturing town in our parts.

Here—­with my savings in money to help her—­she could get her outfit of decent clothes and her lodging among strangers who asked no questions so long as they were paid.  Here—­now on one pretense and now on another—­I could visit her, and we could both plan together what our future lives were to be.  I need not tell you that I stood pledged to make her my wife.  A man in my station always marries a woman of her sort.

Do you wonder if I was happy at this time?  I should have been perfectly happy but for one little drawback.  It was this:  I was never quite at my ease in the presence of my promised wife.

I don’t mean that I was shy with her, or suspicious of her, or ashamed of her.  The uneasiness I am speaking of was caused by a faint doubt in my mind whether I had not seen her somewhere, before the morning when we met at the doctor’s house.  Over and over again, I found myself wondering whether her face did not remind me of some other face—­what other I never could tell.  This strange feeling, this one question that could never be answered, vexed me to a degree that you would hardly credit.  It came between us at the strangest times—­oftenest, however, at night, when the candles were lit.  You have known what it is to try and remember a forgotten name—­and to fail, search as you may, to find it in your mind.  That was my case.  I failed to find my lost face, just as you failed to find your lost name.

In three weeks we had talked matters over, and had arranged how I was to make a clean breast of it at home.  By Alicia’s advice, I was to describe her as having been one of my fellow servants during the time I was employed under my kind master and mistress in London.  There was no fear now of my mother taking any harm from the shock of a great surprise.  Her health had improved during the three weeks’ interval.  On the first evening when she was able to take her old place at tea time, I summoned my courage, and told her I was going to be married.  The poor soul flung her arms round my neck, and burst out crying for joy.  “Oh, Francis!” she says, “I am so glad you will have somebody to comfort you and care for you when I am gone!” As for my aunt Chance, you can anticipate what she did, without being told.  Ah, me!  If there had really been any prophetic virtue in the cards, what a terrible warning they might have given us that night!  It was arranged that I was to bring my promised wife to dinner at the cottage on the next day.

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