owing 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."

"I am sure, Mr. Saul, that it is quite impossible."

"In what way impossible?"

"Papa would not allow it."

"Have you asked him?"

"Oh, dear, no."

"Or Mrs. Clavering?"

Fanny blushed as she remembered how she had permitted the days to go by
without asking her mother's counsel. "No; I have spoken to no one. Why
should I, when I knew that it is impossible?"

"May I speak to Mr. Clavering?" To this Fanny made no immediate answer,
and then Mr. Saul urged the question again. "May I speak to your
father?"

Fanny felt that she was assenting, even in that she did not answer such
a question by an immediate refusal of her permission; and yet she did
not mean to assent. "Miss Clavering," he said, "if you regard me with
affection, you have no right to refuse me this request. I tell you so
boldly. If you feel for me that love which would enable you to accept me
as your husband, it is your duty to tell me so--your duty to me, to
yourself and to your God."

Fanny did not quite see the thing in this light, and yet she did not
wish to contradict him. At this moment she forgot that in order to put
herself on perfectly firm ground, she should have gone back to the first
hypothesis, and assured him that she did not feel any such regard for
him. Mr. Saul, whose intellect was more acute, took advantage of her
here, and chose to believe that that matter of her affection was now
conceded to him. He knew what he was doing well, and is open to a charge
of some jesuitry. "Mr. Saul," said Fanny, with grave prudence, "it
cannot be right for people to marry when they have nothing to live
upon." When she had shown him so plainly that she had no other piece
left on the board to play than this, the game may be said to have been
won on his side.

"If that be your sole objection," said he, "you cannot but think it
right that I and your father should discuss it." To this she made no
reply whatever, and they walked along the lane for a consider