Oh, why had he been so timid?
why had he let that awe of her, which her personality produced so readily, stand between them?
why had he not boldly caught her to himself and, with all the eloquence of a passionate nature, trampled on her scruples, marched through her doubts, convinced--reasoned her into a blessed submission?
'And I will do it yet!' he cried, leaping to his feet with a sudden access of hope and energy.

And he stood awhile looking out into the rainy evening, all the keen, irregular face, and thin, pliant form hardening into the intensity of resolve, which had so often carried the young tutor through an Oxford difficulty, breaking, down antagonism and compelling consent.
At the high tea which represented the late dinner of the household he was wary and self-possessed.

Mrs.Thornburgh got out of him that he had been for a walk, and had seen Catherine, but for all her ingenuities of cross-examination she got nothing more.

Afterward, when he and the vicar were smoking together, he proposed to Mr.Thornburgh that they two should go off for a couple of days on a walking tour to Ullswater.
'I want to go away,' he said, with a hand on the vicar's shoulder, '_and I want to come back_.' The deliberation of the last words was not to be mistaken.

The vicar emitted a contented puff, looked the young man straight in the eyes, and without another word began to plan a walk to Patterdale via High Street, Martindale, and Howtown, and back by Hawes-water.
To Mrs.Thornburgh, Robert announced that he must leave them on the following Saturday, June 24.
'You have given me a good time, cousin Emma,' he said to her, with a bright friendliness which dumfounded her.