It must have been a sudden madness on his part.

He had never said a word of love to her--then suddenly in the rain and mud, when she was looking her very plainest, muffled up in a thick coat, clogged by goloshes, to ask her to marry him! Jean nodded at the girl in the glass.
"What you've got to do is to put him out of your head, and be thankful that you have lots to do, and a house to keep, and boys to make happy, and aren't a heroine writhing about in a novel." But she sighed as she turned away.

Doing one's duty is a dreary business for three-and-twenty.

It goes on for such a long time..