Will Ladislaw,
starting up, looked round also, and meeting Dorothea's eyes with a new
lightning in them, seemed changing to marble: But she immediately
turned them away from him to Rosamond and said in a firm voice--

"Excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate, the servant did not know that you were here.
I called to deliver an important letter for Mr. Lydgate, which I wished
to put into your own hands."

She laid down the letter on the small table which had checked her
retreat, and then including Rosamond and Will in one distant glance and
bow, she went quickly out of the room, meeting in the passage the
surprised Martha, who said she was sorry the mistress was not at home,
and then showed the strange lady out with an inward reflection that
grand people were probably more impatient than others.

Dorothea walked across the street with her most elastic step and was
quickly in her carriage again.

"Drive on to Freshitt Hall," she said to the coachman, and any one
looking at her might have thought that though she was paler than usual
she was never animated by a more self-possessed energy. And that was
really her experience. It was as if she had drunk a great draught of
scorn that stimulated her beyond the susceptibility to other feelings.
She had seen something so far below her belief, that her emotions
rushed back from it and made an excited throng without an object. She
needed something active to turn her excitement out upon. She felt
power to walk and work for a day, without meat or drink. And she would
carry out the purpose with which she had started in the morning, of
going to Freshitt and Tipton to tell Sir James and her uncle all that
she wished them to know about Lydgate, whose married loneliness under
his trial now presented itself to her with new significance, and made
her more ardent in readiness to be his champion. She had never felt
anything like this triumphant power of indignation in the struggle of
her married life, in which there had always been a quickly subduing
pang; and she took it as a sign of new strength.

"Dodo, how very bright your eyes are!" said Celia, when Sir James was
gone out of the room. "And you don't see anything you look at, Arthur
or anything. You are going to do something uncomfortable, I know. Is
it all about Mr. Lydgate, or has something else happened?" Celia had
been used to watch her sister with expectation.

"Yes, dear, a great many things have happened," said Dodo, in her full
tone