That would be a measure which you would recommend?"
"Oh yes," said Lydgate, falling backward in his chair,
with ill-repressed impatience under the banker's pale earnest
eyes and intense preoccupation with himself.
"I have for some time felt that I should open this subject with you in
relation to our Hospital," continued Bulstrode. "Under the circumstances
I have indicated, of course I must cease to have any personal share
in the management, and it is contrary to my views of responsibility
to continue a large application of means to an institution which I
cannot watch over and to some extent regulate. I shall therefore,
in case of my ultimate decision to leave Middlemarch, consider that I
withdraw other support to the New Hospital than that which will subsist
in the fact that I chiefly supplied the expenses of building it,
and have contributed further large sums to its successful working."
Lydgate's thought, when Bulstrode paused according to his wont,
was, "He has perhaps been losing a good deal of money."
This was the most plausible explanation of a speech which had caused
rather a startling change in his expectations. He said in reply--
"The loss to the Hospital can hardly be made up, I fear."
"Hardly," returned Bulstrode, in the same deliberate, silvery tone;
"except by some changes of plan. The only person who may be certainly
counted on as willing to increase her contributions is Mrs.
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