Mr. Fanning had the grace to turn red when I said this. He gave me even for a moment an uncomfortable glance, then said loudly-- "But you didn't surely want that fellow Robert to stay on?" "That is quite true," I replied, "but I still less want you, Mr. Fanning, to pay our debts. You did very wrong to take such a liberty without my permission, very, very wrong." "To tell you the honest truth, I never wished you to know about it," said Mr. Fanning. "Who blurted it out?" "Jane Mullins, of course, told me." "Ah, I mentioned to the mater that it would be very silly to confide in that woman, and now the little mater has done no end of mischief. She has set your back up and--but there, you were bound to know of it sooner or later. Of course the butcher's is not the only bill I must pay, and you were bound to know, of course. I don't really mind that you do know. It's a great relief to you, ain't it now?" "It is not a great relief, and what is more I cannot allow it." "You cannot allow it?" "No." Mr. Fanning now pulled his chair up so close to mine that his knees nearly touched me. I drew back. "You needn't be afraid that I'll come closer," he said almost sulkily, "you know quite well what I feel about you, Miss Wickham, for I have said it already. I may have a few more words to deliver on that point by-and-by, but now what I want to say is this, that I won't force any one to come to me except with a free heart. Nobody, not even you--not even _you_--although, God knows, you are like no one else on earth, shall come to me except willingly. I never met any one like you before, so dainty, so fair so pretty--oh, so very pretty, and such a sweet girl and, upon my word, you can make just anything of me. But there, the time for love-making has not yet come, and you have something ugly to say in the back of your head, I see the thought shining out of your eyes. Oh, however hard you may feel, and however much pain you mean to give me, you cannot make those eyes of yours look ugly and forbidding. Now I am prepared to listen." He folded his arms across his chest and looked full at me. He was in such great and desperate earnest that he was not quite so repellant as usual. I could not but respect him, and I found it no longer difficult to speak freely to him. "I come as a woman to appeal to a man," I said. "You are a man and I am a woman, we stand on equal ground. You would not like your sister, had you a sister, to do what you want me to do. I appeal to you on behalf of that sister who does not exist." He tried to give a laugh, but it would not rise to his lips. "As you justly remarked," he said, "I have not got a sister." "But you know, you must know, Mr. Fanning, what you would feel if you had a sister, and she allowed a man who was no relation, no relation whatever, to take her debts and pay them. What would you think of your sister?"