A woman, when she doubts whether she loves or does not love, is inclined five parts out of six toward 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 whom 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.

“So 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.”