move, or we could have been
forwarder."

"A--well, never mind, never mind!" said Farfrae cheerily. "Eight o'clock
will do well enough if it be not later. Now, don't ye be standing here
talking, or it will be twelve, I doubt." Thus speaking he went out by
the front door and up the street.

During this interval Henchard and Lucetta had had experiences of
a different kind. After Elizabeth's departure for the muff the
corn-merchant opened himself frankly, holding her hand within his arm,
though she would fain have withdrawn it. "Dear Lucetta, I have been
very, very anxious to see you these two or three days," he said, "ever
since I saw you last! I have thought over the way I got your promise
that night. You said to me, 'If I were a man I should not insist.' That
cut me deep. I felt that there was some truth in it. I don't want to
make you wretched; and to marry me just now would do that as nothing
else could--it is but too plain. Therefore I agree to an indefinite
engagement--to put off all thought of marriage for a year or two."

"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 l