“What answer did you expect?”

“I have been thinking so much lately of the answers I might get from your daughter, that I have not made other calculations.  Perhaps I had no right to expect any other than that you have now given.”

“Of course you had not.  And now I ask you again to give her up.”

“I shall not do that, certainly.”

“Then, Mr. Saul, you must go; and, inconvenient as it will be to myself—­terribly inconvenient—­I must ask you to go at once.  Of course I cannot allow you to meet my daughter any more.  As long as you remain she will be debarred from going to her school, and you will be debarred from coming here.”

“If I say that I will not seek her at the school?”

“I will not have it.  It is out of the question that you should remain in the parish.  You ought to feel it.”

“Mr. Clavering, my going—­I mean my instant going—­is a matter of which I have not yet thought.  I must consider it before I give you an answer.”

“It ought to require no consideration,” said Mr. Clavering, rising from his chair—­“none at all; not a moment’s.  Heavens and earth!  Why, what did you suppose you were to live upon?  But I won’t discuss it.  I will not say one more word upon a subject which is so distasteful to me.  You must excuse me if I leave you.”

Mr. Saul then departed, and from this interview had arisen that state of things in the parish which had induced Mrs. Clavering to call Harry to their assistance.  The rector had become more energetic on the subject than any of them had expected.  He did not actually forbid his wife to see Mr. Saul, but he did say that Mr. Saul should not come to the rectory.  Then there arose a question as to the Sunday services, and yet Mr. Clavering would have no intercourse with his curate.  He would have no intercourse with him unless he would fix an immediate day for going, or else promise that he would think no more of Fanny.  Hitherto he had done neither, and therefore Mrs. Clavering had sent for her son.

Chapter XL

Mr. Saul’s Abode

When Harry Clavering left London he was not well, though he did not care to tell himself that he was ill.  But he had been so harassed by his position, was so ashamed of himself and as yet so unable to see any escape from his misery, that he was sore with fatigue and almost worn out with trouble.  On his arrival at the parsonage, his mother at once asked him if he was ill, and received his petulant denial with an ill-satisfied countenance.  That there was something wrong between him and Florence she suspected, but at the present moment she was not disposed to inquire into that matter.  Harry’s love affairs had for her a great interest, but Fanny’s love affairs at the present moment were paramount in her bosom.  Fanny, indeed, had become very troublesome since Mr. Saul’s visit to her father.  On the evening of her conversation with her mother, and