"It is his fault, not mine." In the jar of her whole being,
Pity was overthrown. Was it her fault that she had believed in him--

had believed in his worthiness?--And what, exactly, was he?--
She was able enough to estimate him--she who waited on his glances

with trembling, and shut her best soul in prison, paying it only
hidden visits, that she might be petty enough to please him.

In such a crisis as this, some women begin to hate.
The sun was low when Dorothea was thinking that she would not go

down again, but would send a message to her husband saying that she
was not well and preferred remaining up-stairs. She had never

deliberately allowed her resentment to govern her in this way before,
but she believed now that she could not see him again without

telling him the truth about her feeling, and she must wait till
she could do it without interruption" target="_blank" title="n.停止，中断">interruption. He might wonder and be hurt

at her message. It was good that he should wonder and be hurt.
Her anger said, as anger is apt to say, that God was with her--

that all heaven, though it were crowded with spirits watching them,
must be on her side. She had determined to ring her bell, when there

came a rap at the door.
Mr. Casaubon had sent to say that he would have his dinner

in the library. He wished to be quite alone this evening,
being much occupied.

"I shall not dine, then, Tantripp."
"Oh, madam, let me bring you a little something?"

"No; I am not well. Get everything ready in my dressing room,
but pray do not disturb me again."

Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative struggle,
while the evening slowly deepened into night. But the struggle

changed continually, as that of a man who begins with a movement
towards striking and ends with conquering his desire to strike.

The energy that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted
to inspire a resolved, submission, when the noble habit of the soul

reasserts itself. That thought with which Dorothea had gone
out to meet her husband--her conviction that he had been asking

about the possible arrest of all his work, and that the answer
must have wrung his heart, could not be long without rising beside

the image of him, like a shadowymonitor looking at her anger
with sad remonstrance. It cost her a litany of pictured sorrows

and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for those sorrows--
but the resolvedsubmission did come; and when the house was still,

and she knew that it was near the time when Mr. Casaubon habitually
went to rest, she opened her door gently and stood outside in the

darkness waiting for his coming up-stairs with a light in his hand.
If he did not come soon she thought that she would go down and even risk

incurring another pang. She would never again expect anything else.
But she did hear the library door open, and slowly the light advanced

up the staircase without noise from the footsteps on the carpet.
When her husband stood opposite to her, she saw that his face was

more haggard. He started slightly on seeing her, and she looked up
at him beseechingly, without speaking.

"Dorothea!" he said, with a gentle surprise in his tone. "Were you
waiting for me?"

"Yes, I did not like to disturb you."
"Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your

life by watching."
When the kind quiet melancholy of that speech fell on Dorothea's ears,

she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up
in us if we had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature.

She put her hand into her husband's, and they went along the broad
corridor together.

BOOK V.
THE DEAD HAND.

CHAPTER XLIII.
This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love

Ages ago in finest ivory;
Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines

Of generous womanhood that fits all time
That too is costly ware; majolica

Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:
The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful

As mere Faience! a table ornament
To suit the richest mounting."

Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally
drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity

such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three
miles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk,

she determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to
see Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt

any depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her,
and whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself.

She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another,
but the dread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance

which would make her unjust or hard--overcame every scruple.
That there had been some crisis in her husband's mind she was certain:

he had the very next day begun a new method of arranging his notes,
and had associated her quite newly in carrying out his plan.

Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores of patience.
It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in

Lowick Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home,
that she had written beforehand. And he was not at home.

"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea, who had never, that she
knew of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage.

Yes, Mrs. Lydgate was at home.
"I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me. Will you

ask her if she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?"
When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could

hear sounds of music through an open window--a few notes
from a man's voice and then a piano bursting into roulades.

But the roulades broke off suddenly, and then the servant came
back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.

When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was
a sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits

of the different ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know,
tell us exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days

of mild autumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch
and soft to the eye. It always seemed to have been lately washed,

and to smell of the sweet hedges--was always in the shape of a
pelisse with sleeves hanging all out of the fashion. Yet if she

had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter,
the dress might have seemed right enough: the grace and dignity were

in her limbs and neck; and about her simply parted hair and candid
eyes the large round poke which was then in the fate of women,

seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold trencher we call
a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no dramatic heroine

could have been expected with more interest than Mrs. Casaubon.
To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not mixing with

Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or appearance
were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without satisfaction

that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying HER.
What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the best

judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments
at Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression

she must make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand
with her usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's

lovely bride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance,
but seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle.

The gentleman was too much occupied with the presence of the one woman
to reflect on the contrast between the two--a contrast that would

certainly have been striking to a calm observer. They were both tall,