the memory of the little they had lived through together turned pale and shrank before the memory which suggested how much fuller might have been the intercourse between Will and some one else with whom he had had constant companionship. Everything he had said might refer to that other relation, and whatever had passed between him and herself was thoroughly explained by what she had always regarded as their simple friendship and the cruel obstruction thrust upon it by her husband's injurious act. Dorothea stood silent, with her eyes cast down dreamily, while images crowded upon her which left the sickening certainty that Will was referring to Mrs. Lydgate.
But why sickening? He wanted her to know that here too his conduct should be above suspicion.
Will was not surprised at her silence. His mind also was tumultuously busy while he watched her, and he was feeling rather wildly that something must happen to hinder their parting--some miracle, clearly nothing in their own deliberate speech. Yet, after all, had she any love for him?--he could not pretend to himself that he would rather believe her to be without that pain. He could not deny that a secret longing for the assurance that she loved him was at the root of all his words.
Neither of them knew how long they stood in that way. Dorothea was raising her eyes, and was about to speak, when the door opened and her footman came to say--"The horses are ready, madam, whenever you like to start.""Presently," said Dorothea. Then turning to Will, she said, "I have some memoranda to write for the housekeeper.""I must go," said Will, when the door had closed again--advancing towards her. "The day after to-morrow I shall leave Middlemarch.""You have acted in every way rightly," said Dorothea, in a low tone, feeling a pressure at her heart which made it difficult to speak.
She put out her hand, and Will took it for an instant with.
out speaking, for her words had seemed to him cruelly cold and unlike herself. Their eyes met, but there was discontent in his, and in hers there was only sadness. He turned away and took his portfolio under his arm.
"I have never done you injustice. Please remember me," said Dorothea, repressing a rising sob.
"Why should you say that?" said Will, with irritation. "As if Iwere not in danger of forgetting everything else."He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and it impelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash to Dorothea--his last words--his distant bow to her as he reached the door--the sense that he was no longer there. She sank into the chair, and for a few moments sat like a statue, while images and emotions were hurrying upon her. Joy came first, in spite of the threatening train behind it--joy in the impression that it was really herself whom Will loved and was renouncing, that there was really no other love less permissible, more blameworthy, which honor was hurrying him away from. They were parted all the same, but--Dorothea drew a deep breath and felt her strength return--she could think of him unrestrainedly. At that moment the parting was easy to bear:
the first sense of loving and being loved excluded sorrow. It was as if some hard icy pressure had melted, and her consciousness had room to expand: her past was come back to her with larger interpretation.