A Winter Wedding and a Return to the Reform Club

Back home in London after a very long journey, our weary travellers believe that all is lost and sink into their chairs, exhausted. Aouda asks our woebegone hero, ‘what will become of you, Mr Fogg?’ Downtrodden and disappointed, he replies, ‘I have need of nothing’. At which, Aouda seizes his hand and makes an excellent suggestion:

‘Do you wish at once a kinswoman and friend? Will you have me for your wife?’ Mr Fogg, at this, rose in turn. There was an unwonted light in his eyes, and slight trembling of his lips. Aouda looked into his face. The sincerity, rectitude, firmness and sweetness of this soft glance of a noble woman, who could dare all to save him to whom she owed all, at first astonished, then penetrated him. He shut his eyes for an instant, as if to avoid her look. When he opened them again, ‘I love you!’ he said, simply. ‘Yes, by all that is holiest, I love you, and I am entirely yours!’