 understand
is, that I accept no revision, still less dictation within that range of affairs
which I have deliberated upon as distinctly and properly mine. It is not for you
to interfere between me and Mr. Ladislaw, and still less to encourage
communications from him to you which constitute a criticism on my procedure.«
    Poor Dorothea, shrouded in the darkness, was in a tumult of conflicting
emotions. Alarm at the possible effect on himself of her husband's
strongly-manifested anger, would have checked any expression of her own
resentment, even if she had been quite free from doubt and compunction under the
consciousness that there might be some justice in his last insinuation. Hearing
him breathe quickly after he had spoken, she sat listening, frightened, wretched
- with a dumb inward cry for help to bear this nightmare of a life in which
every energy was arrested by dread. But nothing else happened, except that they
both remained a long while sleepless, without speaking again.
    The next day, Mr. Casaubon received the following answer from Will Ladislaw:
-
 
        »Dear Mr. Casaubon, - I have given all due consideration to your letter
        of yesterday, but I am unable to take precisely your view of our mutual
        position. With the fullest acknowledgment of your generous conduct to me
        in the past, I must still maintain that an obligation of this kind
        cannot fairly fetter me as you appear to expect that it should. Granted
        that a benefactor's wishes may constitute a claim; there must always be
        a reservation as to the quality of those wishes. They may possibly clash
        with more imperative considerations. Or a benefactor's veto might impose
        such a negation on a man's life that the consequent blank might be more
        cruel than the benefaction was generous. I am merely using strong
        illustrations. In the present case I am unable to take your view of the
        bearing which my acceptance of occupation - not enriching certainly, but
        not dishonourable - will have on your own position, which seems to me
        too substantial to be affected in that shadowy manner. And though I do
        not believe that any change in our relations will occur (certainly none
        has yet occurred) which can nullify the obligations imposed on me by the
        past, pardon me for not seeing that those obligations should restrain me
        from using the ordinary freedom of living where I choose, and
        maintaining myself by any lawful occupation I may choose. Regretting
        that there exists this difference between us as to a relation in which
        the conferring of benefits has been entirely on your side - I remain,
        yours with persistent obligation,
                                                                 WILL LADISLAW.«
 
Poor
