“Master is out, sir; there’s only Mrs. Casaubon in the library.  I’d better tell her you’re here, sir,” said Pratt, a red-cheeked man given to lively converse with Tantripp, and often agreeing with her that it must be dull for Madam.

“Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching,” said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with delightful ease.

In another minute he was in the library, and Dorothea was meeting him with her sweet unconstrained smile.

“Mr. Casaubon has gone to the Archdeacon’s,” she said, at once.  “I don’t know whether he will be at home again long before dinner.  He was uncertain how long he should be.  Did you want to say anything particular to him?”

“No; I came to sketch, but the rain drove me in.  Else I would not have disturbed you yet.  I supposed that Mr. Casaubon was here, and I know he dislikes interruption at this hour.”

“I am indebted to the rain, then.  I am so glad to see you.”  Dorothea uttered these common words with the simple sincerity of an unhappy child, visited at school.

“I really came for the chance of seeing you alone,” said Will, mysteriously forced to be just as simple as she was.  He could not stay to ask himself, why not?  “I wanted to talk about things, as we did in Rome.  It always makes a difference when other people are present.”

“Yes,” said Dorothea, in her clear full tone of assent.  “Sit down.”  She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her, looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite her at two yards’ distance, the light falling on his bright curls and delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip and chin.  Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there.  Dorothea for the moment forgot her husband’s mysterious irritation against Will:  it seemed fresh water at her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she exaggerated a past solace.

“I have often thought that I should like to talk to you again,” she said, immediately.  “It seems strange to me how many things I said to you.”

“I remember them all,” said Will, with the unspeakable content in his soul of feeling that he was in the presence of a creature worthy to be perfectly loved.  I think his own feelings at that moment were perfect, for we mortals have our divine moments, when love is satisfied in the completeness of the beloved object.

“I have tried to learn a great deal since we were in Rome,” said Dorothea.  “I can read Latin a little, and I am beginning to understand just a little Greek.  I can help Mr. Casaubon better now.  I can find out references for him and save his eyes in many ways.  But it is very difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired.”