"How that may be I cannot tell, but if you see her that will be of more consequence."
"We shall all see her, of course."
"It was here, in this lane, that I was with her last, and wished her good-by. She did not tell you of my having parted with her, then?"
"Not especially, that I remember."
"Ah, you would have remembered if she had told you; but she was quite right not to tell you." Fanny was now a little confused, so that she could not exactly calculate what all this meant. Mr. Saul walked on by her side, and for some moments nothing was said. After a while he recurred again to his parting from Florence. "I asked her advice on that occasion, and she gave it me clearly,—with a clear purpose and an assured voice. I like a person who will do that. You are sure then that you are getting the truth out of your friend, even if it be a simple negative, or a refusal to give any reply to the question asked."
"Florence Burton is always clear in what she says."
"I had asked her if she thought that I might venture to hope for a more favourable answer if I urged my suit to you again."
"She cannot have said yes to that, Mr. Saul; she cannot have done so!"
"She did not do so. She simply bade me ask yourself. And she was right. On such a matter there is no one to whom I can with propriety address myself, but to yourself. Therefore I now ask you the question. May I venture to have any hope?"
His voice was so solemn, and there was so much of eager seriousness in his face that Fanny could not bring herself to answer him with quickness. The answer that was in her mind was in truth this: "How can you ask me to try to love a man who has but seventy pounds a year in the world, while I myself have nothing?" But there was something in his demeanour,—something that was almost grand in its gravity,—which made it quite impossible that she should speak to him in that tone. But he, having asked his question, waited for an answer; and she was well aware that the longer she delayed it, the weaker became the ground on which she was standing.