Some thought he asked too much of man, some thought he saw too much in women; there was a fear that young people, knowing at last how far short they fell of what they ought to be, might shrink from the matrimony that must expose them to each other, now that they had Sandys to guide them, and the persons who had simply married and risked it (and it was astounding what a number of them there proved to be) wrote to the papers suggesting that he might yield a little in the next edition.

But Sandys remained firm.
At first they took for granted that he was a very aged gentleman; he had, indeed, hinted at this in the text; and when the truth came out ("And just fancy, he is not even married!") the enthusiasm was doubled.

"Not engaged!" they cried.

"Don't tell that to me.

No unmarried man could have written such a eulogy of marriage without being on the brink of it." Perhaps she was dead?
It ran through the town that she was dead.