able way in
silence. Mr. Saul would have been glad to have had the interview over
now, feeling that at any future meeting he would have stronger power of
assuming the position of an accepted lover than he would do now. Another
man would have desired to get from her lips a decided word of love--to
take her hand, perhaps, and to feel some response from it--to go further
than this, as is not unlikely, and plead for the happy indulgences of an
accepted lover. But Mr. Saul abstained, and was wise in abstaining. She
had not so far committed herself but that she might even now have drawn
back, had he pressed her too hard. For hand-pressing, and the
titillations of love-making, Mr. Saul was not adapted; but he was a man
who, having once loved, would love on to the end.

The way, however, was too long to be completed without further speech.
Fanny, as she walked, was struggling to find some words by which she
might still hold her ground, but the words were not forthcoming. It
seemed to herself that she was being carried away by this man, because
she had suddenly lost her remembrance of all negatives. The more she
struggled the more she failed, and at last gave it up in despair. Let
Mr. Saul say what he would, it was impossible that they should be
married. All his arguments about duty were nonsense. It could not be her
duty to marry a man who would have to starve in his attempt to keep her.
She wished she had told him at first that she did not love him, but that
seemed to be too late now. The moment that she was in the house she
would go to her mother and tell her everything.

"Miss Clavering," said he, "I shall see your father to-morrow."

"No, no," she ejaculated.

"I shall certainly do so in any event. I shall either tell him that I
must leave the parish--explaining to him why I must go; or I shall ask
him to let me remain herein the hope that I may become his son-in-law.
You will not now tell me that I am to go?" Fanny was again silent, her
memory failing her as to either negative or affirmative that would be of
service. "To stay here hopeless would be impossible to me. Now I am not
hopeless. Now I am full of hope. I think I could be happy, though I had
to wait as Jacob waited."

"And perhaps have Jacob's consolation," said Fanny. She was lost by the
joke and he knew it. A grim smile of satisfaction crossed his thin face
as he heard it, and there was a feeling of triumph at his heart. "I am
hardly fitted to be a patriarch