. She is clever enough for anything, is my niece. Tell her,
her husband wants liveliness, diversion: put her on amusing tactics.«
    Without Mr. Brooke's advice, Lydgate had determined on speaking to Dorothea.
She had not been present while her uncle was throwing out his pleasant
suggestions as to the mode in which life at Lowick might be enlivened, but she
was usually by her husband's side, and the unaffected signs of intense anxiety
in her face and voice about whatever touched his mind or health, made a drama
which Lydgate was inclined to watch. He said to himself that he was only doing
right in telling her the truth about her husband's probable future, but he
certainly thought also that it would be interesting to talk confidentially with
her. A medical man likes to make psychological observations, and sometimes in
the pursuit of such studies is too easily tempted into momentous prophecy which
life and death easily set at nought. Lydgate had often been satirical on this
gratuitous prediction, and he meant now to be guarded.
    He asked for Mrs. Casaubon, but being told that she was out walking, he was
going away, when Dorothea and Celia appeared, both glowing from their struggle
with the March wind. When Lydgate begged to speak with her alone, Dorothea
opened the library door which happened to be the nearest, thinking of nothing at
the moment but what he might have to say about Mr. Casaubon. It was the first
time she had entered this room since her husband had been taken ill, and the
servant had chosen not to open the shutters. But there was light enough to read
by from the narrow upper panes of the windows.
    »You will not mind this sombre light,« said Dorothea, standing in the middle
of the room. »Since you forbade books, the library has been out of the question.
But Mr. Casaubon will soon be here again, I hope. Is he not making progress?«
    »Yes, much more rapid progress than I at first expected. Indeed, he is
already nearly in his usual state of health.«
    »You do not fear that the illness will return?« said Dorothea, whose quick
ear had detected some significance in Lydgate's tone.
    »Such cases are peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon,« said Lydgate. »The
only point on which I can be confident is that it will be desirable to be very
watchful on Mr. Casaubon's account, lest he should in any way strain his nervous
power.«
    »I beseech you to speak quite plainly,«
