But the gentle gray, unprepared for the crash of a tree that was being

felled on the edge of Halsell wood, took fright, and caused a worse

fright to Rosamond, leading finally to the loss of her baby. Lydgate

could not show his anger towards her, but he was rather bearish to the

Captain, whose visit naturally soon came to an end.

In all future conversations on the subject, Rosamond was mildly certain

that the ride had made no difference, and that if she had stayed at

home the same symptoms would have come on and would have ended in the

same way, because she had felt something like them before.

Lydgate could only say, "Poor, poor darling!"--but he secretly wondered

over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering

within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His

superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had

imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on

every practical question. He had regarded Rosamond's cleverness as

precisely of the receptive kind which became a woman. He was now

beginning to find out what that cleverness was--what was the shape into

which it had run as into a close network aloof and independent. No one

quicker than Rosamond to see causes and effects which lay within the

track of her own tastes and interests: she had seen clearly Lydgate's

preeminence in Middlemarch society, and could go on imaginatively

tracing still more agreeable social effects when his talent should have

advanced him; but for her, his professional and scientific ambition had

no other relation to these desirable effects than if they had been the

fortunate discovery of an ill-smelling oil. And that oil apart, with

which she had nothing to do, of course she believed in her own opinion

more than she did in his. Lydgate was astounded to find in numberless

trifling matters, as well as in this last serious case of the riding,

that affection did not make her compliant. He had no doubt that the

affection was there, and had no presentiment that he had done anything

to repel it. For his own part he said to himself that he loved her as

tenderly as ever, and could make up his mind to her negations;

but--well! Lydgate was much worried, and conscious of new elements in

his life as noxious to him as an inlet of mud to a creature that has

been used to breathe and bathe and dart after its illuminated prey in

the clearest of waters.

Rosamond was soon looking lovelier than ever at her worktable, enjoying

drives in her father's phaeton and thinking it likely that she might be

invited to Quallingham. She knew that she was a much more exquisite

ornament to the drawing-room there than any daughter of the family, and

in reflecting that the gentlemen were aware of that, did not perhaps

sufficiently consider whether the ladies would be eager to see

themselves surpassed.




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