eing, from her entrance, towards the
chancel, even her shortsighted eyes soon discerned Will, but there was
no outward show of her feeling except a slight paleness and a grave bow
as she passed him. To his own surprise Will felt suddenly
uncomfortable, and dared not look at her after they had bowed to each
other. Two minutes later, when Mr. Casaubon came out of the vestry,
and, entering the pew, seated himself in face of Dorothea, Will felt
his paralysis more complete. He could look nowhere except at the choir
in the little gallery over the vestry-door: Dorothea was perhaps
pained, and he had made a wretched blunder. It was no longer amusing
to vex Mr. Casaubon, who had the advantage probably of watching him and
seeing that he dared not turn his head. Why had he not imagined this
beforehand?--but he could not expect that he should sit in that square
pew alone, unrelieved by any Tuckers, who had apparently departed from
Lowick altogether, for a new clergyman was in the desk. Still he
called himself stupid now for not foreseeing that it would be
impossible for him to look towards Dorothea--nay, that she might feel
his coming an impertinence. There was no delivering himself from his
cage, however; and Will found his places and looked at his book as if
he had been a school-mistress, feeling that the morning service had
never been so immeasurably long before, that he was utterly ridiculous,
out of temper, and miserable. This was what a man got by worshipping
the sight of a woman! The clerk observed with surprise that Mr.
Ladislaw did not join in the tune of Hanover, and reflected that he
might have a cold.

Mr. Casaubon did not preach that morning, and there was no change in
Will's situation until the blessing had been pronounced and every one
rose. It was the fashion at Lowick for "the betters" to go out first.
With a sudden determination to break the spell that was upon him, Will
looked straight at Mr. Casaubon. But that gentleman's eyes were on the
button of the pew-door, which he opened, allowing Dorothea to pass, and
following her immediately without raising his eyelids. Will's glance
had caught Dorothea's as she turned out of the pew, and again she
bowed, but this time with a look of agitation, as if she were
repressing tears. Will walked out after them, but they went on towards
the little gate leading out of the churchyard into the shrubbery, never
looking round.

It was impossible for him to follow the