plate: in the presence
of other jewels enormously expensive, and as an addition to orders of
which the amount had not been exactly calculated, thirty pounds for
ornaments so exquisitely suited to Rosamond's neck and arms could
hardly appear excessive when there was no ready cash for it to exceed.
But at this crisis Lydgate's imagination could not help dwelling on the
possibility of letting the amethysts take their place again among Mr.
Dover's stock, though he shrank from the idea of proposing this to
Rosamond. Having been roused to discern consequences which he had
never been in the habit of tracing, he was preparing to act on this
discernment with some of the rigor (by no means all) that he would have
applied in pursuing experiment. He was nerving himself to this rigor
as he rode from Brassing, and meditated on the representations he must
make to Rosamond.

It was evening when he got home. He was intensely miserable, this
strong man of nine-and-twenty and of many gifts. He was not saying
angrily within himself that he had made a profound mistake; but the
mistake was at work in him like a recognized chronic disease, mingling
its uneasy importunities with every prospect, and enfeebling every
thought. As he went along the passage to the drawing-room, he heard
the piano and singing. Of course, Ladislaw was there. It was some
weeks since Will had parted from Dorothea, yet he was still at the old
post in Middlemarch. Lydgate had no objection in general to Ladislaw's
coming, but just now he was annoyed that he could not find his hearth
free. When he opened the door the two singers went on towards the
key-note, raising their eyes and looking at him indeed, but not
regarding his entrance as an interruption. To a man galled with his
harness as poor Lydgate was, it is not soothing to see two people
warbling at him, as he comes in with the sense that the painful day has
still pains in store. His face, already paler than usual, took on a
scowl as he walked across the room and flung himself into a chair.

The singers feeling themselves excused by the fact that they had only
three bars to sing, now turned round.

"How are you, Lydgate?" said Will, coming forward to shake hands.

Lydgate took his hand, but did not think it necessary to speak.

"Have you dined, Tertius? I expected you much earlier," said Rosamond,
who had already seen that her husband was in a "horrible humor." She
seated herself in her usual place a