ing; and in his presence she felt that
agreeable titillation of vanity and sense of romantic drama which
Lydgate's presence had no longer the magic to create. She even
fancied--what will not men and women fancy in these matters?--that
Will exaggerated his admiration for Mrs. Casaubon in order to pique
herself. In this way poor Rosamond's brain had been busy before Will's
departure. He would have made, she thought, a much more suitable
husband for her than she had found in Lydgate. No notion could have
been falser than this, for Rosamond's discontent in her marriage was
due to the conditions of marriage itself, to its demand for
self-suppression and tolerance, and not to the nature of her husband;
but the easy conception of an unreal Better had a sentimental charm
which diverted her ennui. She constructed a little romance which was
to vary the flatness of her life: Will Ladislaw was always to be a
bachelor and live near her, always to be at her command, and have an
understood though never fully expressed passion for her, which would be
sending out lambent flames every now and then in interesting scenes.
His departure had been a proportionate disappointment, and had sadly
increased her weariness of Middlemarch; but at first she had the
alternative dream of pleasures in store from her intercourse with the
family at Quallingham. Since then the troubles of her married life had
deepened, and the absence of other relief encouraged her regretful
rumination over that thin romance which she had once fed on. Men and
women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague
uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and
oftener still for a mighty love. Will Ladislaw had written chatty
letters, half to her and half to Lydgate, and she had replied: their
separation, she felt, was not likely to be final, and the change she
now most longed for was that Lydgate should go to live in London;
everything would be agreeable in London; and she had set to work with
quiet determination to win this result, when there came a sudden,
delightful promise which inspirited her.

It came shortly before the memorable meeting at the town-hall, and was
nothing less than a letter from Will Ladislaw to Lydgate, which turned
indeed chiefly on his new interest in plans of colonization, but
mentioned incidentally, that he might find it necessary to pay a visit
to Middlemarch within the next few weeks--a very pleasant nece