is words had a peculiar
sting. She rose and said with a touch of indignation as well as
hauteur--

"You are much the happier of us two, Mr. Ladislaw, to have nothing."

Will was startled. Whatever the words might be, the tone seemed like a
dismissal; and quitting his leaning posture, he walked a little way
towards her. Their eyes met, but with a strange questioning gravity.
Something was keeping their minds aloof, and each was left to
conjecture what was in the other. Will had really never thought of
himself as having a claim of inheritance on the property which was held
by Dorothea, and would have required a narrative to make him understand
her present feeling.

"I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now," he said. "But
poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we most
care for."

The words cut Dorothea to the heart, and made her relent. She answered
in a tone of sad fellowship.

"Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no notion of
that--I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our
hands, and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despise
women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better
things. I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given
it up," she ended, smiling playfully.

"I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it,"
said Will. He was standing two yards from her with his mind full of
contradictory desires and resolves--desiring some unmistakable proof
that she loved him, and yet dreading the position into which such a
proof might bring him. "The thing one most longs for may be surrounded
with conditions that would be intolerable."

At this moment Pratt entered and said, "Sir James Chettam is in the
library, madam."

"Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea, immediately. It was as
if the same electric shock had passed through her and Will. Each of
them felt proudly resistant, and neither looked at the other, while
they awaited Sir James's entrance.

After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly as possible to
Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly, and then going towards
Dorothea, said--

"I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a long while."

Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by cordially. The sense
that Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him,
roused her resolution and dignity: there was no touch