Jewish antiquities--oh dear!--devout epigrams--the sacred chime
of favorite hymns--all alike were as flat as tunes beaten on wood:

even the spring flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them
under the afternoon clouds that hid the sun fitfully; even the

sustaining thoughts which had become habits seemed to have in them
the weariness of long future days in which she would still live

with them for her sole companions. It was another or rather a
fuller sort of companionship that poor Dorothea was hungering for,

and the hunger had grown from the perpetual effort demanded by her
married life. She was always trying to be what her husband wished,

and never able to repose on his delight in what she was. The thing
that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have, seemed to be

always excluded from her life; for if it was only granted and not
shared by her husband it might as well have been denied. About Will

Ladislaw there had been a difference between them from the first,
and it had ended, since Mr. Casaubon had so severely repulsed

Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property,
by her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband

in the wrong, but that she was helpless. This afternoon the
helplessness was more wretchedly benumbing than ever: she longed

for objects who could be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear.
She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the

sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live
more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus

of a ghastly labor producing what would never see the light.
Today she had stood at the door of the tomb and seen Will Ladislaw

receding into the distant world of warm activity and fellowship--
turning his face towards her as he went.

Books were of no use. Thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she
could not have the carriage to go to Celia, who had lately had a baby.

There was no refuge now from spiritual emptiness and discontent,
and Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne

a headache.
After dinner, at the hour when she usually began to read aloud,

Mr. Casaubon proposed that they should go into the library, where,
he said, he had ordered a fire and lights. He seemed to have revived,

and to be thinking intently.
In the library Dorothea observed that he had newly arranged a row

of his note-books on a table, and now he took up and put into her hand
a well-knownvolume, which was a table of contents to all the others.

"You will oblige me, my dear," he said, seating himself, "if instead
of other reading this evening, you will go through this aloud,

pencil in hand, and at each point where I say `mark,' will make a
cross with your pencil. This is the first step in a sifting process

which I have long had in view, and as we go on I shall be able
to indicate to you certain principles of selectionwhereby you will,

I trust, have an intelligentparticipation in my purpose."
This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his

memorable interview with Lydgate, that Mr. Casaubon's original
reluctance to let Dorothea work with him had given place to the

contrary disposition, namely, to demand much interest and labor from her.
After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, "We will

take the volume up-stairs--and the pencil, if you please--
and in case of reading in the night, we can pursue this task.

It is not wearisome to you, I trust, Dorothea?"
"I prefer always reading what you like best to hear," said Dorothea,

who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself
in reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.

It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics
in Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband,

with all his jealousy and suspicion, had gathered implicit trust
in the integrity of her promises, and her power of devoting herself

to her idea of the right and best. Of late he had begun to feel
that these qualities were a peculiar possession for himself,

and he wanted to engross them.
The reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young weariness

had slept soon and fast: she was awakened by a sense of light,
which seemed to her at first like a sudden vision of sunset after

she had climbed a steep hill: she opened her eyes and saw her
husband wrapped in his warm gown seating himself in the arm-chair

near the fire-place where the embers were still glowing.
He had lit two candles, expecting that Dorothea would awake,

but not liking to rouse her by more direct means.
"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.

"I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here
for a time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up,

and said, "You would like me to read to you?"
"You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,

with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner.
"I am wakeful: my mind is remarkably lucid."

"I fear that the excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,
remembering Lydgate's cautions.

"No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy."
Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on

the same plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over
the pages with more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert,

and he seemed to anticipate what was coming after a very slight
verbal indication, saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass

on to the next head--I omit the second excursus on Crete."
Dorothea was amazed to think of the bird-like speed with which his

mind was surveying the ground where it had been creeping for years.
At last he said--

"Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work to-morrow.
I have deferred it too long, and would gladly see it completed.

But you observe that the principle on which my selection is made,
is to give adequate, and not disproportionate illustration to each

of the theses enumerated in my introduction, as at present sketched.
You have perceived that distinctly, Dorothea?"

"Yes," said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart.
"And now I think that I can take some repose," said Mr. Casaubon.

He laid down again and begged her to put out the lights. When she
had lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull

glow on the hearth, he said--
"Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea."

"What is it?" said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.
"It is that you will let me know, deliberately, whether, in case

of my death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid
doing what I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I

should desire."
Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading

her to the conjecture of some intention on her husband's part
which might make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.

"You refuse?" said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.
"No, I do not yet refuse," said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need

of freedom asserting itself within her; "but it is too solemn--
I think it is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant

what it will bind me to. Whatever affection prompted I would do
without promising."

"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine;
you refuse."

"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.
"But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole soul

to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge suddenly--
still less a pledge to do I know not what."

"You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes?"
"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.

"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.
Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more

sleep for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she
should disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict in which

imagination ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other.
She had no presentiment that the power which her husband wished