t his assertions
would not change people's impressions--that Dorothea's words sounded
like a temptation to do something which in his soberness he had
pronounced to be unreasonable.

"Tell me, pray," said Dorothea, with simple earnestness; "then we can
consult together. It is wicked to let people think evil of any one
falsely, when it can be hindered."

Lydgate turned, remembering where he was, and saw Dorothea's face
looking up at him with a sweet trustful gravity. The presence of a
noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes
the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger,
quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in
the wholeness of our character. That influence was beginning to act on
Lydgate, who had for many days been seeing all life as one who is
dragged and struggling amid the throng. He sat down again, and felt
that he was recovering his old self in the consciousness that he was
with one who believed in it.

"I don't want," he said, "to bear hard on Bulstrode, who has lent me
money of which I was in need--though I would rather have gone without
it now. He is hunted down and miserable, and has only a poor thread of
life in him. But I should like to tell you everything. It will be a
comfort to me to speak where belief has gone beforehand, and where I
shall not seem to be offering assertions of my own honesty. You will
feel what is fair to another, as you feel what is fair to me."

"Do trust me," said Dorothea; "I will not repeat anything without your
leave. But at the very least, I could say that you have made all the
circumstances clear to me, and that I know you are not in any way
guilty. Mr. Farebrother would believe me, and my uncle, and Sir James
Chettam. Nay, there are persons in Middlemarch to whom I could go;
although they don't know much of me, they would believe me. They would
know that I could have no other motive than truth and justice. I would
take any pains to clear you. I have very little to do. There is
nothing better that I can do in the world."

Dorothea's voice, as she made this childlike picture of what she would
do, might have been almost taken as a proof that she could do it
effectively. The searching tenderness of her woman's tones seemed made
for a defence against ready accusers. Lydgate did not stay to think
that she was Quixotic: he gave himself up, for the first time in his
life, to the exquisite sens