erve it, and
you will find that out. He has behaved very badly. James is as angry
with him as can be. And I had better tell you, to prepare you."

"Celia," said Dorothea, entreatingly, "you distress me. Tell me at
once what you mean." It glanced through her mind that' Mr. Casaubon
had left the property away from her--which would not be so very
distressing.

"Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all to
go away from you if you married--I mean--"

"That is of no consequence," said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.

"But if you married Mr. Ladislaw, not anybody else," Celia went on with
persevering quietude. "Of course that is of no consequence in one
way--you never _would_ marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only makes it worse
of Mr. Casaubon."

The blood rushed to Dorothea's face and neck painfully. But Celia was
administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact. It was taking
up notions that had done Dodo's health so much harm. So she went on in
her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on baby's robes.

"James says so. He says it is abominable, and not like a gentleman.
And there never was a better judge than James. It is as if Mr.
Casaubon wanted to make people believe that you would wish to marry Mr.
Ladislaw--which is ridiculous. Only James says it was to hinder Mr.
Ladislaw from wanting to marry you for your money--just as if he ever
would think of making you an offer. Mrs. Cadwallader said you might as
well marry an Italian with white mice! But I must just go and look at
baby," Celia added, without the least change of tone, throwing a light
shawl over her, and tripping away.

Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself back
helplessly in her chair. She might have compared her experience at
that moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life was
taking on a new form that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in which
memory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.
Everything was changing its aspect: her husband's conduct, her own
duteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them--and yet
more, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw. Her world was in a state of
convulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herself
was, that she must wait and think anew. One change terrified her as if
it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her
departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perha