But in the midst of his hesitation, opportunity came to decide him.
A note from Mr. Bulstrode requested Lydgate to call on him at
the Bank. A hypochondriacal tendency had shown itself in the
banker's constitution of late; and a lack of sleep, which was
really only a slight exaggeration of an habitual dyspeptic symptom,
had been dwelt on by him as a sign of threatening insanity.
He wanted to consult Lydgate without delay on that particular morning,
although he had nothing to tell beyond what he had told before.
He listened eagerly to what Lydgate had to say in dissipation
of his fears, though this too was only repetition; and this moment
in which Bulstrode was receiving a medical opinion with a sense
of comfort, seemed to make the communication of a personal need to
him easier than it had been in Lydgate's contemplation beforehand.
He had been insisting that it would be well for Mr. Bulstrode to relax
his attention to business.
"One sees how any mental strain, however slight, may affect
a delicate frame," said Lydgate at that stage of the consultation
when the remarks tend to pass from the personal to the general,
"by the deep stamp which anxiety will make for a time even on
the young and vigorous. I am naturally very strong; yet I
have been thoroughly shaken lately by an accumulation of trouble."
"I presume that a constitution in the susceptible state in which
mine at present is, would be especially liable to fall a victim
to cholera, if it visited our district.
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