act of his
should show that he was afraid. It belonged to the generosity as well
as defiant force of his nature that he resolved not to shrink from
showing to the full his sense of obligation to Bulstrode. It was true
that the association with this man had been fatal to him--true that if
he had had the thousand pounds still in his hands with all his debts
unpaid he would have returned the money to Bulstrode, and taken beggary
rather than the rescue which had been sullied with the suspicion of a
bribe (for, remember, he was one of the proudest among the sons of
men)--nevertheless, he would not turn away from this crushed
fellow-mortal whose aid he had used, and make a pitiful effort to get
acquittal for himself by howling against another. "I shall do as I
think right, and explain to nobody. They will try to starve me out,
but--" he was going on with an obstinate resolve, but he was getting
near home, and the thought of Rosamond urged itself again into that
chief place from which it had been thrust by the agonized struggles of
wounded honor and pride.

How would Rosamond take it all? Here was another weight of chain to
drag, and poor Lydgate was in a bad mood for bearing her dumb mastery.
He had no impulse to tell her the trouble which must soon be common to
them both. He preferred waiting for the incidental disclosure which
events must soon bring about.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

"Mercifully grant that we may grow aged together."
--BOOK OF TOBIT: Marriage Prayer.

In Middlemarch a wife could not long remain ignorant that the town held
a bad opinion of her husband. No feminine intimate might carry her
friendship so far as to make a plain statement to the wife of the
unpleasant fact known or believed about her husband; but when a woman
with her thoughts much at leisure got them suddenly employed on
something grievously disadvantageous to her neighbors, various moral
impulses were called into play which tended to stimulate utterance.
Candor was one. To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to
use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not
take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their
position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.
Then, again, there was the love of truth--a wide phrase, but meaning in
this relation, a lively objection to seeing a wife look happier than
her husband's character warranted, or man