It will be remembered that Florence Burton had advised Mr. Saul to try again, and that Mr. Saul had resolved that he would do so—­resolving, also, that should he try in vain he must leave Clavering and seek another home.  He was a solemn, earnest, thoughtful man; to whom such a matter as this was a phase of life very serious, causing infinite present trouble, nay, causing tribulation, and, to the same extent, capable of causing infinite joy.  From day to day he went about his work, seeing her amid his ministrations almost daily.  And never during these days did he say a word to her of his love—­never since that day in which he had plainly pleaded his cause in the muddy lane.  To no one but Florence Burton had he since spoken of it, and Florence had certainly been true to her trust; but, notwithstanding all that, Fanny’s conviction was very strong.

Florence had counselled Mr. Saul to try again, and Mr. Saul was prepared to make the attempt; but he was a man who allowed himself to do nothing in a hurry.  He thought much of the matter before he could prepare himself to recur to the subject; doubting, sometimes, whether he would be right to do so without first speaking to Fanny’s father; doubting, afterward, whether he might not best serve his cause by asking the assistance of Fanny’s mother.  But he resolved at last that he would depend on himself alone.  As to the rector, if his suit to Fanny were a fault against Mr. Clavering as Fanny’s father, that fault had been already committed.  But Mr. Saul would not admit himself that it was a fault.  I fancy that he considered himself to have, as a gentleman, a right to address himself to any lady with whom he was thrown into close contact.  I fancy that he ignored all want of worldly preparation—­never for a moment attempting to place himself on a footing with men who were richer than himself; and, as the world goes, brighter, but still feeling himself to be in no way lower than they.  If any woman so lived as to show that she thought his line better than their line, it was open to him to ask such a woman to join her lot to his.  If he failed, the misfortune was his; and the misfortune, as he well knew, was one which it was hard to bear.  And as to the mother, though he had learned to love Mrs. Clavering dearly—­appreciating her kindness to all those around her, her conduct to her husband, her solicitude in the parish, all her genuine goodness, still he was averse to trust to her for any part of his success.  Though Mr. Saul was no knight, though he had nothing knightly about him, though he was a poor curate in very rusty clothes and with manner strangely unfitted for much communion with the outer world, still he had a feeling that the spoil which he desired to win should be won by his own spear, and that his triumph would lose half its glory if it were not achieved by his own prowess.  He was no coward, even in such matters as this, or in any other.  When circumstances demanded that he should speak he could speak his mind freely, with manly vigor, and sometimes not without a certain manly grace.