Her father told her everything, saying at the end, "It's better
for you to know, my dear. I think Lydgate must leave the town.
Things have gone against him. I dare say he couldn't help it.
I don't accuse him of any harm," said Mr. Vincy. He had always before
been disposed to find the utmost fault with Lydgate.
The shock to Rosamond was terrible. It seemed to her that no lot
could be so cruelly hard as hers to have married a man who had
become the centre of infamous suspicions. In many cases it is
inevitable that the shame is felt to be the worst part of crime;
and it would have required a great deal of disentangling reflection,
such as had never entered into Rosamond's life, for her in these
moments to feel that her trouble was less than if her husband
had been certainly known to have done something criminal.
All the shame seemed to be there. And she had innocently married
this man with the belief that he and his family were a glory to her!
She showed her usual reticence to her parents, and only said,
that if Lydgate had done as she wished he would have left Middlemarch
long ago.
"She bears it beyond anything," said her mother when she was gone.
"Ah, thank God!" said Mr. Vincy, who was much broken down.
But Rosamond went home with a sense of justified repugnance towards
her husband. What had he really done--how had he really acted?
She did not know.
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