“It was here, in this lane, that I was with her last, and wished her good-by.  She did not tell you of my having parted with her, then?”

“Not especially, that I remember.”

“Ah, you would have remembered if she had told you; but she was quite right not to tell you.”  Fanny was now a little confused, so that she could not exactly calculate what all this meant.  Mr. Saul walked on by her side, and for some moments nothing was said.  After a while he recurred again to his parting from Florence.  “I asked her advice on that occasion, and she gave it me clearly—­with a clear purpose and an assured voice.  I like a person who will do that.  You are sure then that you are getting the truth out of your friend, even if it be a simple negative, or a refusal to give any reply to the question asked.”

“Florence Burton is always clear in what she says.”

“I had asked her if she thought that I might venture to hope for a more favorable answer if I urged my suit to you again.”

“She cannot have said yes to that, Mr. Saul; she cannot have done so!”

“She did not do so.  She simply bade me ask yourself.  And she was right.  On such a matter there is no one to whom I can with propriety address myself, but to yourself.  Therefore I now ask you the question.  May I venture to have any hope?”

His voice was so solemn, and there was so much of eager seriousness in his face that Fanny could not bring herself to answer him with quickness.  The answer that was in her mind was in truth this:  “How can you ask me to try to love a man who has but seventy pounds a year in the world, while I myself have nothing?” But there was something in his demeanor—­something that was almost grand in its gravity—­which made it quite impossible that she should speak to him in that tone.  But he, having asked his question, waited for an answer; and she was well aware that the longer she delayed it, the weaker became the ground on which she was standing.

“It is quite impossible,” she said at last.

“If it really be so—­if you will say again that it is so after hearing me out to an end, I will desist.  In that case I will desist and leave you—­and leave Clavering.”

“Oh, Mr. Saul, do not do that—­for papa’s sake, and because of the parish.”

“I would do much for your father, and as to the parish I love it well.  I do not think I can make you understand how well I love it.  It seems to me that I can never again have the same feeling for any place that I have for this.  There is not a house, a field, a green lane, that is not dear to me.  It is like a first love.  With some people a first love will come so strongly that it makes a renewal of the passion impossible.”  He did not say that it would be so with himself; but it seemed to her that he intended that she should so understand him.

“I do not see why you should leave Clavering,” she said.