“I will not allow that. You forget that I have a father and mother.”
“Yes; and you will have a husband soon.”
“No, not soon; some day, perhaps, if all goes well. But I mean to be back here often before that. I mean to be here in October, just for a little visit, if mamma can spare me.”
“Miss Burton,” he said, speaking in a very serious tone—. All his tones were serious, but that which he now adopted was more solemn than usual. “I wish to consult you on a certain matter, if you can give me five minutes of your time.”
“To consult me, Mr. Saul?”
“Yes, Miss Burton. I am hard pressed at present, and I know no one else of whom I can ask a certain question, if I cannot ask it of you. I think that you will answer me truly, if you answer me at all. I do not think you would flatter me, or tell me an untruth.”
“Flatter you! how could I flatter you?”
“By telling me—; but I must ask you my question first. You and Fanny Clavering are dear friends now. You tell each other everything.”
“I do not know,” said Florence, doubting as to what she might best say, but guessing something of that which was coming.
“She will have told you, perhaps, that I asked her to be my wife. Did she ever tell you that?” Florence looked into his face for a few moments without answering him, not knowing how to answer such a question. “I know that she has told you,” said he. “I can see that it is so.”
“She has told me,” said Florence.
“Why should she not? How could she be with you so many hours, and not tell you that of which she could hardly fail to have the remembrance often present with her. If I were gone from here, if I were not before her eyes daily, it might be otherwise; but seeing me as she does from day to day, of course she has spoken of me to her friend.”
“Yes, Mr. Saul; she has told me of it.”
“And now, will you tell me whether I may hope.”
“Mr. Saul!”
“I want you to betray no secret, but I ask you for your advice. Can I hope that she will ever return my love?”
“How am I to answer you?”
“With the truth. Only with the truth.”
“I should say that she thinks that you have forgotten it.”
“Forgotten it! No, Miss Burton; she cannot think that. Do you believe that men or women can forget such things as that? Can you ever forget her brother? Do you think people ever forget when they have loved? No, I have not forgotten her. I have not forgotten that walk which we had down this lane together. There are things which men never forget.” Then he paused for an answer.
Florence was by nature steady and self-collected, and she at once felt that she was bound to be wary before she gave him any answer. She had half fancied once or twice that Fanny thought more of Mr. Saul than she allowed even herself to know. And Fanny, when she had spoken of the impossibility of such a marriage, had always based the impossibility on the fact that people should not marry without the means of living—a reason which to Florence, with all her prudence, was not sufficient. Fanny might wait as she also intended to wait. Latterly, too, Fanny had declared more than once to Florence her conviction that Mr. Saul’s passion had been a momentary insanity which had altogether passed away; and in these declarations Florence had half fancied that she discovered some tinge of regret. If it were so, what was she now to say to Mr. Saul?
“You think then, Miss Burton,” he continued, “that I have no chance of success? I ask the question because if I felt certain that this was so—quite certain, I should be wrong to remain here. It has been my first and only parish, and I could not leave it without bitter sorrow. But if I were to remain here hopelessly, I should become unfit for my work. I am becoming so, and shall be better away.”
“But why ask me, Mr. Saul?”
“Because I think that you can tell me.”
“But why not ask herself? Who can tell you so truly as she can do?”
“You would not advise me to do that if you were sure that she would reject me?”
“That is what I would advise.”
“I will take your advice, Miss Burton. Now, goodbye, and may God bless you. You say you will be here in the autumn; but before the autumn I shall probably have left Clavering. If so our farewells will be for very long, but I shall always remember our pleasant intercourse here.” Then he went on towards Cumberly Green; and Florence, as she walked into the vicarage grounds, was thinking that no girl had ever been loved by a more single-hearted, pure-minded gentleman than Mr. Saul.
As she sat alone in her bedroom, five or six hours after this interview, she felt some regret that she should leave Clavering without a word to Fanny on the subject. Mr. Saul had exacted no promise of secrecy from her; he was not a man to exact such promises. But she felt not the less that she would be betraying confidence to speak, and it might even be that her speaking on the matter would do more harm than good. Her sympathies were doubtless with Mr. Saul, but she could not therefore say that she thought Fanny ought to accept his love. It would be best to say nothing of the matter, and to allow Mr. Saul to fight his own battle.
Then she turned to her own matters, and there she found that everything was pleasant. How good the world had been to her to give
