It was plain that Lydgate, as Dorothea had expected, knew nothing about the circumstances of her yesterday's visit; nay, he appeared to imagine that she had carried it out according to her intention.
She had prepared a little note asking Rosamond to see her, which she would have given to the servant if he had not been in the way, but now she was in much anxiety as to the result of his announcement.
After leading her into the drawing-room, he paused to take a letter from his pocket and put it into her hands, saying,
"I wrote this last night, and was going to carry it to Lowick in my ride.
When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech—one does not at least hear how inadequate the words are."
Dorothea's face brightened.
"It is I who have most to thank for, since you have let me take that place.
You have consented?" she said, suddenly doubting.
"Yes, the check is going to Bulstrode to-day."
He said no more, but went up-stairs to Rosamond, who had but lately finished dressing herself, and sat languidly wondering what she should do next, her habitual industry in small things, even in the days of her sadness, prompting her to begin some kind of occupation, which she dragged through slowly or paused in from lack of interest.
She looked ill, but had recovered her usual quietude of manner, and Lydgate had feared to disturb her by any questions.
He had told her of Dorothea's letter containing the check, and afterwards he had said,
"Ladislaw is come, Rosy; he sat with me last night; I dare say he will be here again to-day.
I thought he looked rather battered and depressed."
And Rosamond had made no reply.
Now, when he came up, he said to her very gently,
"Rosy, dear, Mrs. Casaubon is come to see you again; you would like to see her, would you not?"
That she colored and gave rather a startled movement did not surprise him after the agitation produced by the interview yesterday—a beneficent agitation, he thought, since it seemed to have made her turn to him again.
Rosamond dared not say no.
She dared not with a tone of her voice touch the facts of yesterday.
Why had Mrs. Casaubon come again?
The answer was a blank which Rosamond could only fill up with dread, for Will Ladislaw's lacerating words had made every thought of Dorothea a fresh smart to her.
Nevertheless, in her new humiliating uncertainty she dared do nothing but comply.
She did not say yes, but she rose and let Lydgate put a light shawl over her shoulders, while he said, "I am going out immediately."
Then something crossed her mind which prompted her to say,
"Pray tell Martha not to bring any one else into the drawing-room."
And Lydgate assented, thinking that he fully understood this wish.
He led her down to the drawing-room door, and then turned away, observing to himself that he was rather a blundering husband to be dependent for his wife's trust in him on the influence of another woman.
Rosamond, wrapping her soft shawl around her as she walked towards Dorothea, was inwardly wrapping her soul in cold reserve.
Had Mrs. Casaubon come to say anything to her about Will?
If so, it was a liberty that Rosamond resented; and she prepared herself to meet every word with polite impassibility.
Will had bruised her pride too sorely for her to feel any compunction towards him and Dorothea: her own injury seemed much the greater.
Dorothea was not only the "preferred" woman, but had also a formidable advantage in being Lydgate's benefactor; and to poor Rosamond's pained confused vision it seemed that this Mrs. Casaubon—this woman who predominated in all things concerning her—must have come now with the sense of having the advantage, and with animosity prompting her to use it.
Indeed, not Rosamond only, but any one else, knowing the outer facts of the case, and not the simple inspiration on which Dorothea acted, might well have wondered why she came.
Looking like the lovely ghost of herself, her graceful slimness wrapped in her soft white shawl, the rounded infantine mouth and cheek inevitably suggesting mildness and innocence, Rosamond paused at three yards' distance from her visitor and bowed.
But Dorothea, who had taken off her gloves, from an impulse which she could never resist when she wanted a sense of freedom, came forward, and with her face full of a sad yet sweet openness, put out her hand.
Rosamond could not avoid meeting her glance, could not avoid putting her small hand into Dorothea's, which clasped it with gentle motherliness; and immediately a doubt of her own prepossessions began to stir within her.
Rosamond's eye was quick for faces; she saw that Mrs. Casaubon's face looked pale and changed since yesterday, yet gentle, and like the firm softness of her hand.
But Dorothea had counted a little too much on her own strength: the clearness and intensity of her mental action this morning were the continuance of a nervous exaltation which made her frame as dangerously responsive as a bit of finest Venetian crystal; and in looking at Rosamond, she suddenly found her heart swelling, and was unable to speak—all her effort was required to keep back tears.
She succeeded in that, and the emotion only passed over her face like the spirit of a sob; but it added to Rosamond's impression that Mrs. Casaubon's state of mind must be something quite different from what she had imagined.
So they sat down without a word of preface on the two chairs that happened to be nearest, and happened also to be close together; though Rosamond's notion when she first bowed was that she should stay a long way off from Mrs. Casaubon.
But she ceased thinking how anything would turn out—merely wondering what would come.
And Dorothea began to speak quite simply, gathering firmness as she went on.
"I had an errand yesterday which I did not finish; that is why I am here again so soon.
You will not think me too troublesome when I tell you that I came to talk to you about the injustice that has been shown towards Mr. Lydgate.
It will cheer you—will it not?—to know a great deal about him, that he may not like to speak about himself just because it is in his own vindication and to his own honor.
You will like to know that your husband has warm friends, who have not left off believing in his high character?
You will let me speak of this without thinking that I take a liberty?"
The cordial, pleading tones which seemed to flow with generous heedlessness above all the facts which had filled Rosamond's mind as grounds of obstruction and hatred between her and this woman, came as soothingly as a warm stream over her shrinking fears.
Of course Mrs. Casaubon had the facts in her mind, but she was not going to speak of anything connected with them.