"I can see what you are thinking of as well as can be, Dodo," said

Celia. "You are wanting to find out if there is anything uncomfortable

for you to do now, only because Mr. Casaubon wished it. As if you had

not been uncomfortable enough before. And he doesn't deserve it, and

you will find that out. He has behaved very badly. James is as angry

with him as can be. And I had better tell you, to prepare you."

"Celia," said Dorothea, entreatingly, "you distress me. Tell me at

once what you mean." It glanced through her mind that Mr. Casaubon

had left the property away from her--which would not be so very

distressing.

"Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all to

go away from you if you married--I mean--"

"That is of no consequence," said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.

"But if you married Mr. Ladislaw, not anybody else," Celia went on with

persevering quietude. "Of course that is of no consequence in one

way--you never _would_ marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only makes it worse

of Mr. Casaubon."

The blood rushed to Dorothea's face and neck painfully. But Celia was

administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact. It was taking

up notions that had done Dodo's health so much harm. So she went on in

her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on baby's robes.

"James says so. He says it is abominable, and not like a gentleman.

And there never was a better judge than James. It is as if Mr.

Casaubon wanted to make people believe that you would wish to marry Mr.

Ladislaw--which is ridiculous. Only James says it was to hinder Mr.

Ladislaw from wanting to marry you for your money--just as if he ever

would think of making you an offer. Mrs. Cadwallader said you might as

well marry an Italian with white mice! But I must just go and look at

baby," Celia added, without the least change of tone, throwing a light

shawl over her, and tripping away.

Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself back

helplessly in her chair. She might have compared her experience at

that moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life was

taking on a new form, that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in which

memory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.

Everything was changing its aspect: her husband's conduct, her own

duteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them--and yet

more, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw. Her world was in a state of

convulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herself

was, that she must wait and think anew. One change terrified her as if

it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her

departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting

everything she said and did. Then again she was conscious of another

change which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning

of heart towards Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mind

that he could, under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive the

effect of the sudden revelation that another had thought of him in that

light--that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such a

possibility,--and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfitting

conditions, and questions not soon to be solved.




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