The sharp little woman's conscience was somewhat troubled in
the adjustment of these opposing "bests," and of her griefs and
satisfactions under late events, which were likely to humble those
who needed humbling, but also to fall heavily on her old friend whose
faults she would have preferred seeing on a background of prosperity.
Poor Mrs. Bulstrode, meanwhile, had been no further shaken by the
oncoming tread of calamity than in the busier stirring of that secret
uneasiness which had always been present in her since the last
visit of Raffles to The Shrubs. That the hateful man had come ill
to Stone Court, and that her husband had chosen to remain there
and watch over him, she allowed to be explained by the fact that
Raffles had been employed and aided in earlier-days, and that this
made a tie of benevolence towards him in his degraded helplessness;
and she had been since then innocently cheered by her husband's
more hopeful speech about his own health and ability to continue
his attention to business. The calm was disturbed when Lydgate had
brought him home ill from the meeting, and in spite of comforting
assurances during the next few days, she cried in private from
the conviction that her husband was not suffering from bodily
illness merely, but from something that afflicted his mind.
He would not allow her to read to him, and scarcely to sit with him,
alleging nervous susceptibility to sounds and movements; yet she
suspected that in shutting himself up in his private room he wanted
to be busy with his papers.
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