At this stage another difficulty confronted him. He had promised that he would write to Miss Sudlow and let her know the result of his interview with her father, by which means she would be forewarned as to the attitude her parents would be likely to adopt towards her when she should see them a few days later. But, as Philip asked himself, how was it possible, under the circumstances, that he should write to her at all? Nothing would have been easier than for him to tell her in so many words that the Vicar had postponed all decision in the affair till he should have seen Fanny herself; but how could he tell her so much without telling her more? He had written to her twice already such letters as it is a lover's happiness to indite, but how dare he mention such a word as love now with that hideous secret crushing him down like a veritable Old Man of the Sea? Neither could he tell his tale to her before telling it to her father. To have done so would have been to take advantage of the Vicar in a way his pride would not allow--him to stoop to, and would, in addition, have the appearance of trying to secure, through Fanny's compassion and womanly pity, a promise to continue true to him which she might see cause to regret after the influence of her parents should have been brought to bear on her. Even at the risk of having hard things thought of him by her he loved so fondly, he would keep an unbroken silence till he had made his confession to the person who was entitled to hear it first of all.
Miss Sudlow went down to Iselford on Saturday by the same train that her lover had travelled by a week before. She had been puzzled and somewhat put about when day passed after day without bringing her the expected letter, or a word of any kind from Phil. That she put a score of questions to herself goes without saying, to none of which, however, was any answer forthcoming; and it was not without a certain vague uneasiness and dread of what the next day or two might have in store for her that she travelled down home. Nothing of this, however, did she betray to her mother, who, with one of her sisters, she found awaiting her arrival at the station.
Fanny Sudlow, unlike her mother, was a brunette. She had brown eyes, frank and vivacious, a great quantity of dark wavy hair, and a face that depended more on character for its attractiveness than on any special charm of feature. As we shall presently discover, she was a young woman of spirit, with a strong sense of independence and considerable fixity of will, which latter characteristic her mother called by another name.