“But—­but—­can I do nothing of a different kind?” said Lucetta.  “I am full of gratitude to you—­you have saved my life.  And your care of me is like coals of fire on my head!  I am a monied person now.  Surely I can do something in return for your goodness—­something practical?”

Henchard remained in thought.  He had evidently not expected this.  “There is one thing you might do, Lucetta,” he said.  “But not exactly of that kind.”

“Then of what kind is it?” she asked with renewed misgiving.

“I must tell you a secret to ask it.—­You may have heard that I have been unlucky this year?  I did what I have never done before—­speculated rashly; and I lost.  That’s just put me in a strait.

“And you would wish me to advance some money?”

“No, no!” said Henchard, almost in anger.  “I’m not the man to sponge on a woman, even though she may be so nearly my own as you.  No, Lucetta; what you can do is this and it would save me.  My great creditor is Grower, and it is at his hands I shall suffer if at anybody’s; while a fortnight’s forbearance on his part would be enough to allow me to pull through.  This may be got out of him in one way—­that you would let it be known to him that you are my intended—­that we are to be quietly married in the next fortnight.—­Now stop, you haven’t heard all!  Let him have this story, without, of course, any prejudice to the fact that the actual engagement between us is to be a long one.  Nobody else need know:  you could go with me to Mr. Grower and just let me speak to ’ee before him as if we were on such terms.  We’ll ask him to keep it secret.  He will willingly wait then.  At the fortnight’s end I shall be able to face him; and I can coolly tell him all is postponed between us for a year or two.  Not a soul in the town need know how you’ve helped me.  Since you wish to be of use, there’s your way.”

It being now what the people called the “pinking in” of the day, that is, the quarter-hour just before dusk, he did not at first observe the result of his own words upon her.

“If it were anything else,” she began, and the dryness of her lips was represented in her voice.

“But it is such a little thing!” he said, with a deep reproach.  “Less than you have offered—­just the beginning of what you have so lately promised!  I could have told him as much myself, but he would not have believed me.”

“It is not because I won’t—­it is because I absolutely can’t,” she said, with rising distress.

“You are provoking!” he burst out.  “It is enough to make me force you to carry out at once what you have promised.”

“I cannot!” she insisted desperately.

“Why?  When I have only within these few minutes released you from your promise to do the thing offhand.”

“Because—­he was a witness!”

“Witness?  Of what?

“If I must tell you——.  Don’t, don’t upbraid me!”

“Well!  Let’s hear what you mean?”