"No; they cannot be all-important."
"As regards my present happiness and rest in this world they will be so. Of course I know that nothing you can say or do will hurt me beyond that. But you might help me even to that further and greater bliss. You might help me too in that,—as I also might help you."
"But, Mr. Saul—" she began again, and then, feeling that she must go on, she forced herself to utter words which at the time she felt to be commonplace. "People cannot marry without an income. Mr. Fielding did not think of such a thing till he had a living assured to him."
"But, independently of that, might I hope?" She ventured for an instant to glance at his face, and saw that his eyes were glistening with a wonderful brightness.
"How can I answer you further? Is not that reason enough why such a thing should not be even discussed?"
"No, Miss Clavering, it is not reason enough. If you were to tell me that you could never love me,—me, personally,—that you could never regard me with affection, that would be reason why I should desist;—why I should abandon all my hope here, and go away from Clavering for ever. Nothing else can be reason enough. My being poor ought not to make you throw me aside if you loved me. If it were so that you loved me, I think you would owe it me to say so, let me be ever so poor."
"I do not like you the less because you are poor."
"But do you like me at all? Can you bring yourself to love me? Would you make the effort if I had such an income as you thought necessary? If I had such riches, could you teach yourself to regard me as him whom you were to love better than all the world beside? I call upon you to answer me that question truly; and if you tell me that it could be so, I will not despair, and I will not go away."
As he said this they came to a turn in the road which brought the parsonage gate within their view. Fanny knew that she would leave him there and go in alone, but she knew also that she must say something further to him before she could thus escape. She did not wish to give him an assurance of her positive indifference to him,—and still less did she wish to tell him that he might hope. It could not be possible that such an engagement should be approved by her father, nor could she bring herself to think that she could be quite contented with a lover such as Mr. Saul. When he had first proposed to her she had almost ridiculed his proposition in her heart. Even now there was something in it that was almost ridiculous;—and yet there was something in it also that touched her as being sublime. The man was honest, good, and true,—perhaps the best and truest man that she had ever known. She could not bring herself to say to him any word that should banish him for ever from the place he loved so well.
"If you knew your own heart well enough to answer me, you should do so," he went on to say. "If you do not, say so, and I will be content to wait your own time."