buried forever with the corpse of
Raffles--it was that haunting ghost of his earlier life which as he
rode past the archway of the Green Dragon he was trusting that
Providence had delivered him from. Yes, Providence. He had not
confessed to himself yet that he had done anything in the way of
contrivance to this end; he had accepted what seemed to have been
offered. It was impossible to prove that he had done anything which
hastened the departure of that man's soul.

But this gossip about Bulstrode spread through Middlemarch like the
smell of fire. Mr. Frank Hawley followed up his information by sending
a clerk whom he could trust to Stone Court on a pretext of inquiring
about hay, but really to gather all that could be learned about Raffles
and his illness from Mrs. Abel. In this way it came to his knowledge
that Mr. Garth had carried the man to Stone Court in his gig; and Mr.
Hawley in consequence took an opportunity of seeing Caleb, calling at
his office to ask whether he had time to undertake an arbitration if it
were required, and then asking him incidentally about Raffles. Caleb
was betrayed into no word injurious to Bulstrode beyond the fact which
he was forced to admit, that he had given up acting for him within the
last week. Mr Hawley drew his inferences, and feeling convinced that
Raffles had told his story to Garth, and that Garth had given up
Bulstrode's affairs in consequence, said so a few hours later to Mr.
Toller. The statement was passed on until it had quite lost the stamp
of an inference, and was taken as information coming straight from
Garth, so that even a diligent historian might have concluded Caleb to
be the chief publisher of Bulstrode's misdemeanors.

Mr. Hawley was not slow to perceive that there was no handle for the
law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the circumstances
of his death. He had himself ridden to Lowick village that he might
look at the register and talk over the whole matter with Mr.
Farebrother, who was not more surprised than the lawyer that an ugly
secret should have come to light about Bulstrode, though he had always
had justice enough in him to hinder his antipathy from turning into
conclusions. But while they were talking another combination was
silently going forward in Mr. Farebrother's mind, which foreshadowed
what was soon to be loudly spoken of in Middlemarch as a necessary
"putting of two and two together." With the reasons which kept
Bul