A woman, when she doubts whether she loves or does not love, is inclined five parts out of six towards the man of whom she is thinking. When a woman doubts she is lost, the cynics say. I simply assert, being no cynic, that when a woman doubts she is won. The more Fanny thought of Mr. Saul, the more she felt that he was not the man for which she had first taken him—that he was of larger dimensions as regarded spirit, manhood, and heart, and better entitled to a woman’s love. She would not tell herself that she was attached to him; but in all her arguments with herself against him, she rested her objection mainly on the fact that he had but seventy pounds a year. And then the threatened attack, the attack that was to be final, came upon her before she was prepared for it!
They had been together as usual during the intervening time. It was, indeed, impossible that they should not be together. Since she had first begun to doubt about Mr. Saul, she had been more diligent than heretofore in visiting the poor and in attending to her school, as though she were recognizing the duty which would specially be hers if she were to marry such a one as he. And thus they had been brought together more than ever. All this her mother had seen, and seeing, had trembled; but she had not thought it wise to say anything till Fanny should speak. Fanny was very good and very prudent. It could not be but that Fanny should know how impossible must be such a marriage. As to the rector, he had no suspicions on the matter. Saul had made himself an ass on one occasion, and there had been an end of it. As a curate Saul was invaluable, and therefore the fact of his having made himself an ass had been forgiven him. It was thus that the rector looked at it.
It was hardly more than ten days since the last walk in Cumberly Lane when Mr. Saul renewed the attack. He did it again on the same spot, and at the same hour of the day. Twice a week, always on the same days, he was in the chapel up at this end of the parish, and on these days he could always find Fanny on her way home. When he put his head in at the little school door and asked for her, her mind misgave her. He had not walked home with her since, and though he had been in the school with her often, had always left her there, going about his own business, as though he were by no means desirous of her company. Now the time had come, and Fanny felt that she was not prepared. But she took up her hat, and went out to him, knowing that there was no escape.
“Miss Clavering,” said he, “have you thought of what I was saying to you?” To this she made no answer, but merely played with the point of the parasol which she held in her hand. “You cannot but have thought of it,” he continued. “You could not dismiss it altogether from your thoughts.”
“I have thought about it, of course,” she said.
“And what does your mind say? Or rather what does your heart say? Both should speak, but I would sooner hear the heart first.”
“I am sure, Mr. Saul, that it is quite impossible.”
“In what way impossible?”
“Papa would not allow it.”
“Have you asked him?”
“Oh, dear, no.”
“Or Mrs. Clavering?”
Fanny blushed as she remembered how she had permitted the days to go by without asking her mother’s counsel. “No; I have spoken to no one. Why should I, when I knew that it is impossible?”
“May I speak to Mr. Clavering?” To this Fanny made no immediate answer, and then Mr. Saul urged the question again. “May I speak to your father?”
Fanny felt that she was assenting, even in that she did not answer such a question by an immediate refusal of her permission; and yet she did not mean to assent. “Miss Clavering,” he said, “if you regard me with affection, you have no right to refuse me this request. I tell you so boldly. If you feel for me that love which would enable you to accept me as your husband, it is your duty to tell me so—your duty to me, to yourself, and to your God.”
Fanny did not quite see the thing in this light, and yet she did not wish to contradict him. At this moment she forgot that in order to put herself on perfectly firm ground, she should have gone back to the first hypothesis, and assured him that she did not feel any such regard for him. Mr. Saul, whose intellect was more acute, took advantage of her here, and chose to believe that that matter of her affection was now conceded to him. He knew what he was doing well, and is open to a charge of some Jesuitry. “Mr. Saul,” said Fanny, with grave prudence, “it cannot be right for people to marry when they have nothing to live upon.” When she had shown him so plainly that she had no other piece left on the board to play than this, the game may be said to have been won on his side.
“If that be your sole objection,” said he, “you cannot but think it right that I and your father should discuss it.” To this she made no reply whatever, and they walked along the lane
