ble before any
one's judgment but your own. I would tell her that you shall be
cleared in every fair mind. I would cheer her heart. Will you ask her
if I may go to see her? I did see her once."

"I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the proposition with some
hope. "She would feel honored--cheered, I think, by the proof that you
at least have some respect for me. I will not speak to her about your
coming--that she may not connect it with my wishes at all. I know very
well that I ought not to have left anything to be told her by others,
but--"

He broke off, and there was a moment's silence. Dorothea refrained
from saying what was in her mind--how well she knew that there might be
invisible barriers to speech between husband and wife. This was a
point on which even sympathy might make a wound. She returned to the
more outward aspect of Lydgate's position, saying cheerfully--

"And if Mrs. Lydgate knew that there were friends who would believe in
you and support you, she might then be glad that you should stay in
your place and recover your hopes--and do what you meant to do.
Perhaps then you would see that it was right to agree with what I
proposed about your continuing at the Hospital. Surely you would, if
you still have faith in it as a means of making your knowledge useful?"

Lydgate did not answer, and she saw that he was debating with himself.

"You need not decide immediately," she said, gently. "A few days hence
it will be early enough for me to send my answer to Mr. Bulstrode."

Lydgate still waited, but at last turned to speak in his most decisive
tones.

"No; I prefer that there should be no interval left for wavering. I am
no longer sure enough of myself--I mean of what it would be possible
for me to do under the changed circumstances of my life. It would be
dishonorable to let others engage themselves to anything serious in
dependence on me. I might be obliged to go away after all; I see
little chance of anything else. The whole thing is too problematic; I
cannot consent to be the cause of your goodness being wasted. No--let
the new Hospital be joined with the old Infirmary, and everything go on
as it might have done if I had never come. I have kept a valuable
register since I have been there; I shall send it to a man who will
make use of it," he ended bitterly. "I can think of nothing for a long
while but getting an income."

"It hurts me very much to hear you speak so hopeles