lan in the Far West, and the need for funds in order to carry out
a good design had set him on debating with himself whether it would not
be a laudable use to make of his claim on Bulstrode, to urge the
application of that money which had been offered to himself as a means
of carrying out a scheme likely to be largely beneficial. The question
seemed a very dubious one to Will, and his repugnance to again entering
into any relation with the banker might have made him dismiss it
quickly, if there had not arisen in his imagination the probability
that his judgment might be more safely determined by a visit to
Middlemarch.

That was the object which Will stated to himself as a reason for coming
down. He had meant to confide in Lydgate, and discuss the money
question with him, and he had meant to amuse himself for the few
evenings of his stay by having a great deal of music and badinage with
fair Rosamond, without neglecting his friends at Lowick Parsonage:--if
the Parsonage was close to the Manor, that was no fault of his. He had
neglected the Farebrothers before his departure, from a proud
resistance to the possible accusation of indirectly seeking interviews
with Dorothea; but hunger tames us, and Will had become very hungry for
the vision of a certain form and the sound of a certain voice.
Nothing, had done instead--not the opera, or the converse of zealous
politicians, or the flattering reception (in dim corners) of his new
hand in leading articles.

Thus he had come down, foreseeing with confidence how almost everything
would be in his familiar little world; fearing, indeed, that there
would be no surprises in his visit. But he had found that humdrum
world in a terribly dynamic condition, in which even badinage and
lyrism had turned explosive; and the first day of this visit had become
the most fatal epoch of his life. The next morning he felt so harassed
with the nightmare of consequences--he dreaded so much the immediate
issues before him--that seeing while he breakfasted the arrival of the
Riverston coach, he went out hurriedly and took his place on it, that
he might be relieved, at least for a day, from the necessity of doing
or saying anything in Middlemarch. Will Ladislaw was in one of those
tangled crises which are commoner in experience than one might imagine,
from the shallow absoluteness of men's judgments. He had found
Lydgate, for whom he had the sincerest respect, under circumstances
which claimed