Page 848 - middlemarch

fore we were married, and there have been expenses since
which I have been obliged to meet. The consequence is,
there is a large debt at Brassing—three hundred and eighty
pounds—which has been pressing on me a good while, and
in fact we are getting deeper every day, for people don’t pay
me the faster because others want the money. I took pains
to keep it from you while you were not well; but now we
must think together about it, and you must help me.’
‘What can—I—do, Tertius?’ said Rosamond, turning
her eyes on him again. That little speech of four words, like
so many others in all languages, is capable by varied vo-
cal inflections of expressing all states of mind from helpless
dimness to exhaustive argumentative perception, from the
completest self-devoting fellowship to the most neutral
aloofness. Rosamond’s thin utterance threw into the words
‘What can—I—do!’ as much neutrality as they could hold.
They fell like a mortal chill on Lydgate’s roused tenderness.
He did not storm in indignation— he felt too sad a sinking
of the heart. And when he spoke again it was more in the
tone of a man who forces himself to fulfil a task.
‘It is necessary for you to know, because I have to give
security for a time, and a man must come to make an inven-
tory of the furniture.’
Rosamond colored deeply. ‘Have you not asked papa for
money?’ she said, as soon as she could speak.
‘No.’
‘Then I must ask him!’ she said, releasing her hands from
Lydgate’s, and rising to stand at two yards’ distance from
him.