The next day as they had prearranged, Commander Wentworth met Anne just outside of Kellynch Hall and they took a walk and talked. In the light of day Anne felt a bit self conscious about their long kiss and embrace from the night before, though she simultaneously desired its repetition and felt all the warmth of being engaged to the man she adored.

Commander Wentworth had an idea of why Anne blushed so when she looked at him, but he was glad that she had a passionate nature hidden beneath her normal calm and demure appearance. He resolved to be prudent and restrained, but felt delight in having the freedom to call her Anne and hearing his Christian name from her lips. Each repetition of it was a caress.

Anne enjoyed holding onto her Frederick's arm and talking about their future. They resolved that he ought to seek the approval of her father later that day, though Anne warned him that she was not so certain that it would be granted. She knew that Frederick was not the sort of match that her father would expect her to make. However, Frederick reassured Anne that if her father declined his permission that they would simply wait until her majority. Anne resolved that should her father not approve, she could write the months starting with the current one, August, and the twenty four months until she became one and twenty, August of 1808, in her journal. Twenty four months did not seem to be an insurmountable time to wait.

Later when Commander Wentworth sought the approval of Sir Walter, he was glad to be forewarned. Although Anne's father's approval was neither specifically granted nor denied and it appeared no dowry would be forthcoming, Commander Wentworth was not especially bothered by it. He was used to doubters and naysayers. He could have languished as a midshipman instead of a lieutenant, or a lieutenant instead of a commander, but merit was of paramount importance in the navy and he had proven himself worthy of a command. While he had no doubt his first ship would be of dubious seaworthiness, he would prove his value once again.

Also to his thinking, Sir Walter's approval was of dubious value. In all likelihood his Anne would have reached her majority before the marriage could take place (a matter that he had not raised with her, and even that might be unduly optimistic of him), for though certain of his luck and confident that he would be rich one day, he would not marry her before she could accompany him to sea. He never wanted to subject her to the possibility of the protracted humiliation of having to return home as a widow thickening with child before he had any wealth to settle upon her.

Although Anne did not hear anything from her father regarding Frederick's request, she could tell he was displeased with her that day, repeatedly shaking his head in a "no" when he looked in her direction. However, she could weather her father's disapproval as she knew her proper daughterly affection was unreturned with any but the thinnest of fatherly love. She simply returned to her chambers and wrote the months to be waited in her journal without undue distress.

However, Anne was unprepared for the steadfast and rational opposition from one who had almost a mother's love and rights, when she came to speak to Lady Russell the following day to share her joy.

Lady Russell did not react as Anne expected, when Anne told her, "I am to be married to Commander Wentworth."

There were no smiles or well wishes, only another drawn face lightly shaking, "no."

"I am surprised at you Anne. Usually you are much more careful in your choices. I can only surmise that your emotions have overwhelmed your sense and you will think better of this arrangement when you have considered the matter properly as you ought. Dear Anne, can you not see that you will be left dangling like the last leaf clinging upon a branch in autumn, ready to be dislodged with the barest of breezes, your future selected by the uncertain winds of fortune? Whatever the personal merits of this Mr. Wentworth, he asks too much for you to be placed into dependence reliant on chance."

When Anne made no answer, eyes suddenly bleary with unshed tears, Lady Russell ruthlessly continued, believing any current distress well worth the prevention of Anne's removal by a fearless and headstrong stranger without alliance or fortune who without a thought or care to Anne herself was willing to sink her into a state most wearing and anxious which would slaughter the delicate bloom of youth and beauty before her, replacing it with the millstone of youth-killing dependence.

"He has no connections, no hopes of gaining affluence. If he might die, you will have given up your youth and innocence for nothing but perhaps might return home. However if he should be wounded and exiled from the sea, you might languish in poverty your whole life."

To this Anne had no reply. She could feel the depths of despair that would afflict her upon the occasion of his imaginary death. Her mother's death would be nothing to it. She imagined pleading through her journal that the seaman informing her must be mistaken while knowing with certainty that what she had been told was true. She would then consider that act which would doom her immortal soul to endless suffering in the lake of fire. Her suicide note would be a simple last inscription on the next blank page of her journal, "Life is nothing without him."

As to the other possible future Lady Russell painted, Anne could imagine a wounded Frederick who she would heroically nurse and devote everything to, who while still adoring her might be bitter that he could not return to sea but instead must remain confined to small quarters on land. She imagined (though she did not know how to knit) knitting socks to support them. She would gladly play that role if it meant she would be with him.

However, Lady Russell, like a skilled commander attacking a weakness only she could make out, next decided to turn Anne's loyalty against Commander Wentworth.

"You have said he does not wish to marry you until he has made his fortune, but being tied to you will alter his chances of success."

Anne could not help but inquire as to Lady Russell's meaning.

"You told me that he has risen to his current rank through bravery and merit. How much easier is it for a single man to pursue doggedly all that he desires, to cast caution to the wind and do what he must, when compared to a man distracted by his distant fiancee. Men rise in the navy through war and capture of enemy vessels, by risking life and limb, by thinking of nothing else. They cannot be successful if their loyalties are divided between king and wife. And this dubious plan of living on his ship with him, why I do not believe such a practice actually exists and if it might how would a man do what he ought to do where it might subject his wife to a risk to her life. Anne, if he had properly thought the matter through he would have never proposed to you."

At this final pronouncement, Anne felt the all the condemning rightness in what Lady Russell had said. She could not bear to look at Lady Russell's sympathetic eyes or take any comfort from the woman who with her words had condemned Anne to having to do the right thing. Before her threatened tears could fall, Anne departed rudely without even a parting word and rushed from Kellynch Lodge. Her feet carried her in the direction of her home. Almost without any conscious thought she found herself in her chambers and opening her journal.

She stared at the months she had written down earlier. How optimistic they seemed now. She thought about writing down years and decades, a whole lifetime condemned to be without him.

Instead she wrote, "Lady Russell has convinced me that I must give him up for his own good, but how can I go on living without him? Without hope?"