“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, good-by, 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 toward 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.