ffairs
which I have deliberated upon as distinctly and properly mine. It is
not for you to interfere between me and Mr. Ladislaw, and still less to
encourage communications from him to you which constitute a criticism
on my procedure."

Poor Dorothea, shrouded in the darkness, was in a tumult of conflicting
emotions. Alarm at the possible effect on himself of her husband's
strongly manifested anger, would have checked any expression of her own
resentment, even if she had been quite free from doubt and compunction
under the consciousness that there might be some justice in his last
insinuation. Hearing him breathe quickly after he had spoken, she sat
listening, frightened, wretched--with a dumb inward cry for help to
bear this nightmare of a life in which every energy was arrested by
dread. But nothing else happened, except that they both remained a
long while sleepless, without speaking again.

The next day, Mr. Casaubon received the following answer from Will
Ladislaw:--

"DEAR MR. CASAUBON,--I have given all due consideration to your letter
of yesterday, but I am unable to take precisely your view of our mutual
position. With the fullest acknowledgment of your generous conduct to
me in the past, I must still maintain that an obligation of this kind
cannot fairly fetter me as you appear to expect that it should.
Granted that a benefactor's wishes may constitute a claim; there must
always be a reservation as to the quality of those wishes. They may
possibly clash with more imperative considerations. Or a benefactor's
veto might impose such a negation on a man's life that the consequent
blank might be more cruel than the benefaction was generous. I am
merely using strong illustrations. In the present case I am unable to
take your view of the bearing which my acceptance of occupation--not
enriching certainly, but not dishonorable--will have on your own
position which seems to me too substantial to be affected in that
shadowy manner. And though I do not believe that any change in our
relations will occur (certainly none has yet occurred) which can
nullify the obligations imposed on me by the past, pardon me for not
seeing that those obligations should restrain me from using the
ordinary freedom of living where I choose, and maintaining myself by
any lawful occupation I may choose. Regretting that there exists this
difference between us as to a relation in which the conferring of
benefits has been entirely