Why had he not told her everything? He did not
speak to her on the subject, and of course she could not speak to him.
It came into her mind once that she would ask her father to let
her go home again; but dwelling on that prospect made it seem utter
dreariness to her: a married woman gone back to live with her parents--
life seemed to have no meaning for her in such a position:
she could not contemplate herself in it.
The next two days Lydgate observed a change in her, and believed that she
had heard the bad news. Would she speak to him about it, or would she
go on forever in the silence which seemed to imply that she believed
him guilty? We must remember that he was in a morbid state of mind,
in which almost all contact was pain. Certainly Rosamond in this
case had equal reason to complain of reserve and want of confidence
on his part; but in the bitterness of his soul he excused himself;--
was he not justified in shrinking from the task of telling her,
since now she knew the truth she had no impulse to speak to him?
But a deeper-lying consciousness that he was in fault made
him restless, and the silence between them became intolerable to him;
it was as if they were both adrift on one piece of wreck and looked
away from each other.
He thought, "I am a fool. Haven't I given up expecting anything?
I have married care, not help.
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