m, and he could only walk back
sadly at mid-day along the same road which he had trodden hopefully in
the morning. The lights were all changed for him both without and
within.

CHAPTER XLVIII

Surely the golden hours are turning gray
And dance no more, and vainly strive to run:
I see their white locks streaming in the wind--
Each face is haggard as it looks at me,
Slow turning in the constant clasping round
Storm-driven.

Dorothea's distress when she was leaving the church came chiefly from
the perception that Mr. Casaubon was determined not to speak to his
cousin, and that Will's presence at church had served to mark more
strongly the alienation between them. Will's coming seemed to her
quite excusable, nay, she thought it an amiable movement in him towards
a reconciliation which she herself had been constantly wishing for. He
had probably imagined, as she had, that if Mr. Casaubon and he could
meet easily, they would shake hands and friendly intercourse might
return. But now Dorothea felt quite robbed of that hope. Will was
banished further than ever, for Mr. Casaubon must have been newly
embittered by this thrusting upon him of a presence which he refused to
recognize.

He had not been very well that morning, suffering from some difficulty
in breathing, and had not preached in consequence; she was not
surprised, therefore, that he was nearly silent at luncheon, still less
that he made no allusion to Will Ladislaw. For her own part she felt
that she could never again introduce that subject. They usually spent
apart the hours between luncheon and dinner on a Sunday; Mr. Casaubon
in the library dozing chiefly, and Dorothea in her boudoir, where she
was wont to occupy herself with some of her favorite books. There was
a little heap of them on the table in the bow-window--of various sorts,
from Herodotus, which she was learning to read with Mr. Casaubon, to
her old companion Pascal, and Keble's "Christian Year." But to-day
opened one after another, and could read none of them. Everything
seemed dreary: the portents before the birth of Cyrus--Jewish
antiquities--oh dear!--devout epigrams--the sacred chime of favorite
hymns--all alike were as flat as tunes beaten on wood: even the spring
flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them under the afternoon
clouds that hid the sun fitfully; even the sustaining thoughts which
had become habits seemed to have in them the weariness of