Lydgate had to learn that
Rosamond had revoked his order to Borthrop Trumbull. Feeling it necessary that
she should be gradually accustomed to the idea of their quitting the house in
Lowick Gate, he overcame his reluctance to speak to her again on the subject,
and when they were breakfasting said -
    »I shall try to see Trumbull this morning, and tell him to advertise the
house in the Pioneer and the Trumpet. If the thing were advertised, some one
might be inclined to take it who would not otherwise have thought of a change.
In these country places many people go on in their old houses when their
families are too large for them, for want of knowing where they can find
another. And Trumbull seems to have got no bite at all.«
    Rosamond knew that the inevitable moment was come. »I ordered Trumbull not
to inquire further,« she said, with a careful calmness which was evidently
defensive.
    Lydgate stared at her in mute amazement. Only half an hour before he had
been fastening up her plaits for her, and talking the »little language« of
affection, which Rosamond, though not returning it, accepted as if she had been
a serene and lovely image, now and then miraculously dimpling towards her
votary. With such fibres still astir in him, the shock he received could not at
once be distinctly anger; it was confused pain. He laid down the knife and fork
with which he was carving, and throwing himself back in his chair, said at last,
with a cool irony in his tone -
    »May I ask when and why you did so?«
    »When I knew that the Plymdales had taken a house, I called to tell him not
to mention ours to them; and at the same time I told him not to let the affair
go on any further. I knew that it would be very injurious to you if it were
known that you wished to part with your house and furniture, and I had a very
strong objection to it. I think that was reason enough.«
    »It was of no consequence then that I had told you imperative reasons of
another kind; of no consequence that I had come to a different conclusion, and
given an order accordingly?« said Lydgate, bitingly, the thunder and lightning
gathering about his brow and eyes.
    The effect of any one's anger on Rosamond had always been to make her shrink
in cold dislike, and to become all the more calmly correct, in the conviction
that she was not the person to misbehave, whatever others might do. She replied
-
    »I think