with Hugh! no. Not that I should mind it; but he is not fool
enough for that. If he wanted fighting done, he would do it by deputy.
But there is nothing of that kind."

She asked him no more questions, and on the next morning he returned to
London. On his table he found a note which he at once knew to be from
Lady Ongar, and which had come only that afternoon.

"Come to me at once; at once." That was all that note contained. Fanny
Clavering, while she was inquiring of her brother about his troubles,
had not been without troubles of her own. For some days past she had
been aware--almost aware--that Mr. Saul's love was not among the things
that were past. I am not prepared to say that this conviction on her
part was altogether an unalloyed trouble, or that there might have been
no faint touch of sadness, of silent melancholy about her, had it been
otherwise. But Mr. Saul was undoubtedly a trouble to her; and Mr. Saul
with his love in activity would be more troublesome than Mr. Saul with
his love in abeyance. "It would be madness either in him or in me,"
Fanny had said to herself very often; "he has not a shilling in the
world." But she thought no more in these days of the awkwardness of his
gait, or of his rusty clothes, or his abstracted manner; and for his
doings as a clergyman her admiration had become very great. Her mother
saw something of all this, and cautioned her; but Fanny's demure manner
deceived Mrs. Clavering. "Oh, mamma, of course I know that anything of
the kind must be impossible; and I'm sure he does not think of it
himself any longer." When she had said this, Mrs. Clavering had believed
that it was all right. The reader must not suppose that Fanny had been a
hypocrite. There had been no hypocrisy in her words to her mother. At
that moment the conviction that Mr. Saul's love was not among past
events had not reached her; and as regarded, herself; she was quite
sincere when she said that anything of the kind must be impossible.

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,