“My grief lies onward¹ and my joy behind.”

—SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets².

Exiles notoriously feed much on hopes, and are unlikely to stay in banishment³ unless they are obliged. When Will Ladislaw exiled himself from Middlemarch he had placed no stronger obstacle to his return than his own resolve, which was by no means an iron barrier, but simply a state of mind liable to melt into a minuet with other states of mind, and to find itself bowing, smiling, and giving place with polite facility. As the months went on, it had seemed more and more difficult to him to say why he should not run down to Middlemarch—merely for the sake of hearing something about Dorothea; and if on such a flying visit he should chance by some strange coincidence to meet with her, there was no reason for him to be ashamed of having taken an innocent journey which he had beforehand supposed that he should not take. Since he was hopelessly divided from her, he might surely venture into her neighborhood; and as to the suspicious friends who kept a dragon watch over her—their opinions seemed less and less important with time and change of air.

And there had come a reason quite irrespective of Dorothea, which seemed to make a journey to Middlemarch a sort of philanthropic duty. Will had given a disinterested⁴ attention to an intended settlement on a new plan in the Far West, and the need for funds in order to carry out a good design had set him on debating with himself whether it would not be a laudable use to make of his claim on Bulstrode, to urge the application of that money which had been offered to himself as a means of carrying out a scheme likely to be largely beneficial. The question seemed a very dubious⁵ one to Will, and his repugnance⁶ to again entering into any relation with the banker might have made him dismiss it quickly, if there had not arisen in his imagination the probability that his judgment⁷ might be more safely determined⁸ by a visit to Middlemarch.

That was the object which Will stated to himself as a reason for coming down. He had meant to confide⁹ in Lydgate, and discuss the money question with him, and he had meant to amuse himself for the few evenings of his stay by having a great deal of music and badinage¹⁰ with fair Rosamond, without neglecting his friends at Lowick Parsonage:—if the Parsonage was close to the Manor¹¹, that was no fault of his. He had neglected the Farebrothers before his departure, from a proud resistance to the possible accusation¹² of indirectly¹³ seeking interviews with Dorothea; but hunger tames us, and Will had become very hungry for the vision of a certain form and the sound of a certain voice. Nothing had done instead—not the opera, or the converse¹⁴ of zealous¹⁵ politicians, or the flattering reception (in dim corners) of his new hand in leading articles.

Thus he had come down, foreseeing with confidence how almost everything would be in his familiar little world; fearing, indeed, that there would be no surprises in his visit. But he had found that humdrum¹⁶ world in a terribly dynamic condition, in which even badinage and lyrism had turned explosive; and the first day of this visit had become the most fatal epoch¹⁷ of his life. The next morning he felt so harassed¹⁸ with the nightmare of consequences—he dreaded¹⁹ so much the immediate²⁰ issues before him—that seeing while he breakfasted the arrival of the Riverston coach, he went out hurriedly and took his place on it, that he might be relieved, at least for a day, from the necessity of doing or saying anything in Middlemarch. Will Ladislaw was in one of those tangled²¹ crises which are commoner in experience than one might imagine, from the shallow absoluteness of men’s judgments²². He had found Lydgate, for whom he had the sincerest respect, under circumstances which claimed his thorough and frankly²³ declared sympathy; and the reason why, in spite of that claim, it would have been better for Will to have avoided all further intimacy²⁴, or even contact, with Lydgate, was precisely²⁵ of the kind to make such a course appear impossible. To a creature of Will’s susceptible²⁶ temperament—without any neutral region of indifference²⁷ in his nature, ready to turn everything that befell him into the collisions of a passionate²⁸ drama—the revelation that Rosamond had made her happiness in any way dependent on him was a difficulty which his outburst of rage towards her had immeasurably increased for him. He hated his own cruelty, and yet he dreaded to show the fulness of his relenting: he must go to her again; the friendship could not be put to a sudden end; and her unhappiness was a power which he dreaded. And all the while there was no more foretaste of enjoyment in the life before him than if his limbs had been lopped off and he was making his fresh start on crutches²⁹. In the night he had debated whether he should not get on the coach, not for Riverston, but for London, leaving a note to Lydgate which would give a makeshift reason for his retreat. But there were strong cords pulling him back from that abrupt³⁰ departure: the blight³¹ on his happiness in thinking of Dorothea, the crushing of that chief hope which had remained in spite of the acknowledged necessity for renunciation, was too fresh a misery³² for him to resign himself to it and go straightway into a distance which was also despair.

Thus he did nothing more decided³³ than taking the Riverston coach. He came back again by it while it was still daylight, having made up his mind that he must go to Lydgate’s that evening. The Rubicon, we know, was a very insignificant³⁴ stream to look at; its significance lay entirely³⁵ in certain invisible conditions. Will felt as if he were forced to cross his small boundary ditch, and what he saw beyond it was not empire, but discontented subjection.

But it is given to us sometimes even in our every-day life to witness the saving influence of a noble nature, the divine efficacy of rescue that may lie in a self-subduing act of fellowship. If Dorothea, after her night’s anguish³⁶, had not taken that walk to Rosamond—why, she perhaps would have been a woman who gained a higher character for discretion³⁷, but it would certainly not have been as well for those three who were on one hearth³⁸ in Lydgate’s house at half-past seven that evening.

Rosamond had been prepared for Will’s visit, and she received him with a languid coldness which Lydgate accounted for by her nervous exhaustion³⁹, of which he could not suppose that it had any relation to Will. And when she sat in silence bending over a bit of work, he innocently apologized for her in an indirect way by begging her to lean backward and rest. Will was miserable⁴⁰ in the necessity for playing the part of a friend who was making his first appearance and greeting to Rosamond, while his thoughts were busy about her feeling since that scene of yesterday, which seemed still inexorably to enclose them both, like the painful vision of a double madness. It happened that nothing called Lydgate out of the room; but when Rosamond poured out the tea, and Will came near to fetch it, she placed a tiny bit of folded paper in his saucer. He saw it and secured it quickly, but as he went back to his inn he had no eagerness to unfold the paper. What Rosamond had written to him would probably deepen the painful impressions of the evening. Still, he opened and read it by his bed-candle. There were only these few words in her neatly⁴¹ flowing hand:—

“I have told Mrs. Casaubon. She is not under any mistake about you. I told her because she came to see me and was very kind. You will have nothing to reproach me with now. I shall not have made any difference to you.”

The effect of these words was not quite all gladness. As Will dwelt on them with excited imagination, he felt his cheeks and ears burning at the thought of what had occurred between Dorothea and Rosamond—at the uncertainty⁴² how far Dorothea might still feel her dignity wounded in having an explanation of his conduct offered to her. There might still remain in her mind a changed association with him which made an irremediable difference—a lasting⁴³ flaw. With active fancy he wrought⁴⁴ himself into a state of doubt little more easy than that of the man who has escaped from wreck⁴⁵ by night and stands on unknown ground in the darkness. Until that wretched yesterday—except the moment of vexation long ago in the very same room and in the very same presence—all their vision, all their thought of each other, had been as in a world apart, where the sunshine fell on tall white lilies, where no evil lurked⁴⁶, and no other soul entered. But now—would Dorothea meet him in that world again?