"No, I think it will be better not. To stop here and try for a fellowship is my best chance of repaying these poor people the money which I have taken from them for no purpose." "I never thought of that," said Meenie. "You are bound in honour to pay them back, of course." Paul liked the instantaneous honesty of that "of course." It marked the naturally honourable character; for "of course," too, they must wait to marry (young people jump so) till all that money was paid off. "Fortunately," he said, "I have lived economically, and have not spent nearly as much as they guaranteed. I got scholarships up to a hundred a year of my own, and I only took a hundred a year of theirs. They offered me two hundred. But there's five years at a hundred, that makes five hundred pounds--a big debt to begin life with." "Never mind," said Meenie. "You will get a fellowship, and in a few years you can pay it off." "Yes," said Paul, "I can pay it off. But I can never pay off the hopes and aspirations I have blighted. I must become a schoolmaster, or a barrister, or something of that sort, and never repay them for their self-sacrifice and devotion in making me whatever I shall become. They may get back their money, but they will have lost their cherished Apostle for ever." "Mr. Owen," Meenie answered solemnly, "the seal of the Apostolate lies far deeper than that. It was born in you, and no act of yours can shake it off." "Meenie," he said, looking at her gently, with a changed expression--"Meenie, we shall have to wait many years." "Never mind, Paul," she replied, as naturally as if he had been Paul to her all her life long, "I can wait if you can. But what will you do for the immediate present?" "I have my scholarship," he said; "I can get on partly upon that; and then I can take pupils; and I have only one year more of it." So before they parted that night it was all well understood between them that Paul was to declare his defection from the Church at the earliest opportunity; that he was to live as best he might till he could take his degree; that he was then to pay off all the back debt; and that after all these things he and Meenie might get comfortably married whenever they were able. As to the Rector and his wife, or any other parental authorities, they both left them out in the cold as wholly as young people always do leave their elders out on all similar occasions.