On the eighth day Mr.Carling called again and was accepted.
The proposal to make the marriage as private as possible came from the lady.

She had been to London to consult her uncle (whose health, she regretted to say, would not allow him to travel to Cornwall to give his niece away at the altar), and he agreed with Mrs.Duncan that the wedding could not be too private and unpretending.

If it was made public, the family of her first husband would expect cards to be sent to them, and a renewal of intercourse, which would be painful on both sides, might be the consequence.

Other friends in Scotland, again, would resent her marrying a second time at her age, and would distress her and annoy her future husband in many ways.

She was anxious to break altogether with her past existence, and to begin a new and happier life untrammeled by any connection with former times and troubles.