At last he turned towards her and
said impetuously--
"Why should I not tell you?--you know what sort of bond marriage is.
You will understand everything."
Dorothea felt her heart beginning to beat faster. Had he that
sorrow too? But she feared to say any word, and he went on immediately.
"It is impossible for me now to do anything--to take any step
without considering my wife's happiness. The thing that I might
like to do if I were alone, is become impossible to me. I can't see
her miserable. She married me without knowing what she was going into,
and it might have been better for her if she had not married me."
"I know, I know--you could not give her pain, if you were not obliged
to do it," said Dorothea, with keen memory of her own life.
"And she has set her mind against staying. She wishes to go.
The troubles she has had here have wearied her," said Lydgate,
breaking off again, lest he should say too much.
"But when she saw the good that might come of staying--" said
Dorothea, remonstrantly, looking at Lydgate as if he had forgotten
the reasons which had just been considered. He did not speak immediately.
"She would not see it," he said at last, curtly, feeling at first
that this statement must do without explanation. "And, indeed,
I have lost all spirit about carrying on my life here.
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