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CHAPTER LXXIX . “ Now , I saw in my dream , that just as they had ended their talk , they drew nigh to a very miry slough , that was in the midst of the plain ; and they , being heedless , did both fall suddenly into the bog . The name of the slough was Despond . ” — BUNYAN . When Rosamond was quiet , and Lydgate had left her , hoping that she might soon sleep under the effect of an anodyne , he went into the drawing - room to fetch a book which he had left there , meaning to spend the evening in his work - room , and he saw on the table Dorothea’s letter addressed to him . He had not ventured to ask Rosamond if Mrs . Casaubon had called , but the reading of this letter assured him of the fact , for Dorothea mentioned that it was to be carried by herself . When Will Ladislaw came in a little later Lydgate met him with a surprise which made it clear that he had not been told of the earlier visit , and Will could not say , “ Did not Mrs . Lydgate tell you that I came this morning ? ” “ Poor Rosamond is ill , ” Lydgate added immediately on his greeting . “ Not seriously , I hope , ” said Will . “ No — only a slight nervous shock — the effect of some agitation . She has been overwrought lately . The truth is , Ladislaw , I am an unlucky devil . We have gone through several rounds of purgatory since you left , and I have lately got on to a worse ledge of it than ever . I suppose you are only just come down — you look rather battered — you have not been long enough in the town to hear anything ? ” “ I travelled all night and got to the White Hart at eight o’clock this morning . I have been shutting myself up and resting , ” said Will , feeling himself a sneak , but seeing no alternative to this evasion . And then he heard Lydgate’s account of the troubles which Rosamond had already depicted to him in her way . She had not mentioned the fact of Will’s name being connected with the public story — this detail not immediately affecting her — and he now heard it for the first time . “ I thought it better to tell you that your name is mixed up with the disclosures , ” said Lydgate , who could understand better than most men how Ladislaw might be stung by the revelation . “ You will be sure to hear it as soon as you turn out into the town . I suppose it is true that Raffles spoke to you . ” “ Yes , ” said Will , sardonically . “ I shall be fortunate if gossip does not make me the most disreputable person in the whole affair . I should think the latest version must be , that I plotted with Raffles to murder Bulstrode , and ran away from Middlemarch for the purpose . ” He was thinking “ Here is a new ring in the sound of my name to recommend it in her hearing ; however — what does it signify now ? ” But he said nothing of Bulstrode’s offer to him . Will was very open and careless about his personal affairs , but it was among the more exquisite touches in nature’s modelling of him that he had a delicate generosity which warned him into reticence here . He shrank from saying that he had rejected Bulstrode’s money , in the moment when he was learning that it was Lydgate’s misfortune to have accepted it .
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