"I don't want to have an argument with you; but you must give it up; that's all."
"Give what up? If you mean give up your sister, I certainly shall never do that. She may give me up, and if you have anything to say on that head, you had better say it to her."
"What right can you have,—without a shilling in the world—?"
"I should have no right to marry her in such a condition,—with your father's consent or without it. It is a thing which I have never proposed to myself for a moment,—or to her."
"And what have you proposed to yourself?"
Mr. Saul paused a moment before he spoke, looking down at the dusty heaps upon his table, as though hoping that inspiration might come to him from them. "I will tell you what I have proposed," said he at last, "as nearly as I can put it into words. I propose to myself to have the image in my heart of one human being whom I can love above all the world beside; I propose to hope that I, as others, may some day marry, and that she whom I so love may become my wife; I propose to bear with such courage as I can much certain delay, and probable absolute failure in all this; and I propose also to expect,—no, hardly to expect,—that that which I will do for her, she will do for me. Now you know all my mind, and you may be sure of this, that I will instigate your sister to no disobedience."
"Of course she will not see you again."
"I shall think that hard after what has passed between us; but I certainly shall not endeavour to see her clandestinely."
"And under these circumstances, Mr. Saul, of course you must leave us."
"So your father says."