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"I never saw you look so pale, madam," said Tantripp, a solid-figured

woman who had been with the sisters at Lausanne.
"Was I ever high-colored, Tantripp?" said Dorothea, smiling faintly.

"Well, not to say high-colored, but with a bloom like a Chiny rose.
But always smelling those leather books, what can be expected?

Do rest a little this morning, madam. Let me say you are ill and not
able to go into that close library."

"Oh no, no! let me make haste," said Dorothea. "Mr. Casaubon wants
me particularly."

When she went down she felt sure that she should promise to fulfil
his wishes; but that would be later in the day--not yet.

As Dorothea entered the library, Mr. Casaubon turned round from
the table where he had been placing some books, and said--

"I was waiting for your appearance, my dear. I had hoped
to set to work at once this morning, but I find myself under

some indisposition, probably from too much excitement yesterday.
I am going now to take a turn in the shrubbery, since the air is milder."

"I am glad to hear that," said Dorothea. "Your mind, I feared,
was too active last night."

"I would fain have it set at rest on the point
I last spoke of, Dorothea. You can now, I hope, give me an answer."

"May I come out to you in the garden presently?" said Dorothea,
winning a little breathing space in that way.

"I shall be in the Yew-tree Walk for the next half-hour,"
said Mr. Casaubon, and then he left her.

Dorothea, feeling very weary, rang and asked Tantripp to bring
her some wraps. She had been sitting still for a few minutes,

but not in any renewal of the former conflict: she simply felt
that she was going to say "Yes" to her own doom: she was too weak,

too full of dread at the thought of inflicting a keen-edged blow
on her husband, to do anything but submit completely. She sat still

and let Tantripp put on her bonnet and shawl, a passivity which was
unusual with her, for she liked to wait on herself.

"God bless you, madam!" said Tantripp, with an irrepressible movement
of love towards the beautiful, gentle creature for whom she felt

unable to do anything more, now that she had finished tying the bonnet.
This was too much for Dorothea's highly-strung feeling, and she

burst into tears, sobbing against Tantripp's arm. But soon she
checked herself, dried her eyes, and went out at the glass door

into the shrubbery.
"I wish every book in that library was built into a caticom for

your master," said Tantripp to Pratt, the butler, finding him in the
breakfast-room. She had been at Rome, and visited the antiquities,

as we know; and she always declined to call Mr. Casaubon anything
but "your master," when speaking to the other servants.

Pratt laughed. He liked his master very well, but he liked
Tantripp better.

When Dorothea was out on the gravel walks, she lingered among the
nearer clumps of trees, hesitating, as she had done once before,

though from a different cause. Then she had feared lest her effort
at fellowship should be unwelcome; now she dreaded going to the spot

where she foresaw that she must bind herself to a fellowship from
which she shrank. Neither law nor the world's opinion compelled

her to this--only her husband's nature and her own compassion,
only the ideal and not the real yoke of marriage. She saw clearly

enough the whole situation, yet she was fettered: she could not
smite the stricken soul that entreated hers. If that were weakness,

Dorothea was weak. But the half-hour was passing, and she must not
delay longer. When she entered the Yew-tree Walk she could not see

her husband; but the walk had bends, and she went, expecting to catch
sight of his figure wrapped in a blue cloak, which, with a warm

velvet cap, was his outer garment on chill days for the garden.
It occurred to her that he might be resting in the summer-house,

towards which the path diverged a little. Turning the angle,
she could see him seated on the bench, close to a stone table.

His arms were resting on the table, and his brow was bowed down on them,
the blue cloak being dragged forward and screening his face on

each side.
"He exhausted himself last night," Dorothea said to herself,

thinking at first that he was asleep, and that the summer-house was
too damp a place to rest in. But then she remembered that of late

she had seen him take that attitude when she was reading to him,
as if he found it easier than any other; and that he would

sometimes speak, as well as listen, with his face down in that way.
She went into the summerhouse and said, "I am come, Edward; I am ready."

He took no notice, and she thought that he must be fast asleep.
She laid her hand on his shoulder, and repeated, "I am ready!"

Still he was motionless; and with a sudden confused fear, she leaned
down to him, took off his velvet cap, and leaned her cheek close to

his head, crying in a distressed tone--
"Wake, dear, wake! Listen to me. I am come to answer."

But Dorothea never gave her answer.
Later in the day, Lydgate was seated by her bedside, and she was

talking deliriously, thinking aloud, and recalling what had gone
through her mind the night before. She knew him, and called him

by his name, but appeared to think it right that she should explain
everything to him; and again, and again, begged him to explain

everything to her husband.
"Tell him I shall go to him soon: I am ready to promise.

Only, thinking about it was so dreadful--it has made me ill.
Not very ill. I shall soon be better. Go and tell him."

But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken.
CHAPTER XLIX.

A task too strong for wizard spells
This squire had brought about;

'T is easy dropping stones in wells,
But who shall get them out?"

"I wish to God we could hinder Dorothea from knowing this," said Sir
James Chettam, with a little frown on his brow, and an expression

of intensedisgust about his mouth.
He was standing on the hearth-rug in the library at Lowick Grange,

and speaking to Mr. Brooke. It was the day after Mr. Casaubon had
been buried, and Dorothea was not yet able to leave her room.

"That would be difficult, you know, Chettam, as she is an executrix,
and she likes to go into these things--property, land, that kind

of thing. She has her notions, you know," said Mr. Brooke,
sticking his eye-glasses on nervously, and exploring the edges of a

folded paper which he held in his hand; "and she would like to act--
depend upon it, as an executrix Dorothea would want to act. And she

was twenty-one last December, you know. I can hinder nothing."
Sir James looked at the carpet for a minute in silence, and then

lifting his eyes suddenly fixed them on Mr. Brooke, saying, "I will
tell you what we can do. Until Dorothea is well, all business must

be kept from her, and as soon as she is able to be moved she must
come to us. Being with Celia and the baby will be the best thing

in the world for her, and will pass away the time. And meanwhile you
must get rid of Ladislaw: you must send him out of the country."

Here Sir James's look of disgust returned in all its intensity.
Mr. Brooke put his hands behind him, walked to the window

and straightened his back with a little shake before he replied.
"That is easily said, Chettam, easily said, you know."

"My dear sir," persisted Sir James, restraining his indignation
within respectful forms, "it was you who brought him here, and you

who keep him here--I mean by the occupation you give him."
"Yes, but I can't dismiss him in an instant without assigning reasons,

my dear Chettam. Ladislaw has been invaluable, most satisfactory.
I consider that I have done this part of the country a service by

bringing him--by bringing him, you know." Mr. Brooke ended with a nod,
turning round to give it.

"It's a pity this part of the country didn't do without him,
that's all I have to say about it. At any rate, as Dorothea's

brother-in-law, I feel warranted in objecting strongly to his being
kept here by any action on the part of her friends. You admit,

I hope, that I have a right to speak about what concerns the dignity
of my wife's sister?"

Sir James was getting warm.
"Of course, my dear Chettam, of course. But you and I have

different ideas--different--"
"Not about this action of Casaubon's, I should hope," interrupted

Sir James. "I say that he has most unfairly compromised Dorothea.
I say that there never was a meaner, more ungentlemanly action

than this--a codicil of this sort to a will which he made at the time
of his marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family--

a positiveinsult to Dorothea!"
"Well, you know, Casaubon was a little twisted about Ladislaw.

Ladislaw has told me the reason--dislike of the bent he took, you know--
Ladislaw didn't think much of Casaubon's notions, Thoth and Dagon--

that sort of thing: and I fancy that Casaubon didn't like the
independent position Ladislaw had taken up. I saw the letters

between them, you know. Poor Casaubon was a little buried in books--
he didn't know the world."

"It's all very well for Ladislaw to put that color on it,"
said Sir James. "But I believe Casaubon was only jealous of him

on Dorothea's account, and the world will suppose that she
gave him some reason; and that is what makes it so abominable--

coupling her name with this young fellow's."
"My dear Chettam, it won't lead to anything, you know,"

said Mr. Brooke, seating himself and sticking on his eye-
glass again. "It's all of a piece with Casaubon's oddity.

This paper, now, `Synoptical Tabulation' and so on, `for the use
of Mrs. Casaubon,' it was locked up in the desk with the will.

I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his researches, eh? and
she'll do it, you know; she has gone into his studies uncommonly."

"My dear sir," said Sir James, impatiently, "that is neither
here nor there. The question is, whether you don't see with me

the propriety of sending young Ladislaw away?"
"Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps,

it may come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't
hindergossip. People say what they like to say, not what they

have chapter and verse for," said Mr Brooke, becoming acute about
the truths that lay on the side of his own wishes. "I might get rid

of Ladislaw up to a certain point--take away the `Pioneer' from him,
and that sort of thing; but I couldn't send him out of the country

if he didn't choose to go--didn't choose, you know."
Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing

the nature of last year's weather, and nodding at the end with his
usual amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy.

"Good God!" said Sir James, with as much passion as he ever showed,
"let us get him a post; let us spend money on him. If he could go

in the suite of some Colonial Governor! Grampus might take him--
and I could write to Fulke about it."

"But Ladislaw won't be shipped off like a head of cattle, my dear fellow;
Ladislaw has his ideas. It's my opinion that if he were to part

from me to-morrow, you'd only hear the more of him in the country.
With his talent for speaking and drawing up documents, there are

few men who could come up to him as an agitator--an agitator,
you know."

"Agitator!" said Sir James, with bitter emphasis, feeling that
the syllables of this word properlyrepeated were a sufficient

exposure of its hatefulness.
"But be reasonable, Chettam. Dorothea, now. As you say,

she had better go to Celia as soon as possible. She can stay under
your roof, and in the mean time things may come round quietly.

Don't let us be firing off our guns in a hurry, you know.
Standish will keep our counsel, and the news will be old before

it's known. Twenty things may happen to carry off Ladislaw--
without my doing anything, you know."

"Then I am to conclude that you decline to do anything?"
"Decline, Chettam?--no--I didn't say decline. But I really don't

see what I could do. Ladislaw is a gentleman."
"I am glad to hear It!" said Sir James, his irritation making him




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