These interrogatives were addressed to the footman who had come in to say that the keeper had found one of Dagley’s boys with a leveret in his hand just killed.

“I’ll come, I’ll come.  I shall let him off easily, you know,” said Mr. Brooke aside to Dorothea, shuffling away very cheerfully.

“I hope you feel how right this change is that I—­that Sir James wishes for,” said Dorothea to Will, as soon as her uncle was gone.

“I do, now I have heard you speak about it.  I shall not forget what you have said.  But can you think of something else at this moment?  I may not have another opportunity of speaking to you about what has occurred,” said Will, rising with a movement of impatience, and holding the back of his chair with both hands.

“Pray tell me what it is,” said Dorothea, anxiously, also rising and going to the open window, where Monk was looking in, panting and wagging his tail.  She leaned her back against the window-frame, and laid her hand on the dog’s head; for though, as we know, she was not fond of pets that must be held in the hands or trodden on, she was always attentive to the feelings of dogs, and very polite if she had to decline their advances.

Will followed her only with his eyes and said, “I presume you know that Mr. Casaubon has forbidden me to go to his house.”

“No, I did not,” said Dorothea, after a moment’s pause.  She was evidently much moved.  “I am very, very sorry,” she added, mournfully.  She was thinking of what Will had no knowledge of—­the conversation between her and her husband in the darkness; and she was anew smitten with hopelessness that she could influence Mr. Casaubon’s action.  But the marked expression of her sorrow convinced Will that it was not all given to him personally, and that Dorothea had not been visited by the idea that Mr. Casaubon’s dislike and jealousy of him turned upon herself.  He felt an odd mixture of delight and vexation:  of delight that he could dwell and be cherished in her thought as in a pure home, without suspicion and without stint—­of vexation because he was of too little account with her, was not formidable enough, was treated with an unhesitating benevolence which did not flatter him.  But his dread of any change in Dorothea was stronger than his discontent, and he began to speak again in a tone of mere explanation.

“Mr. Casaubon’s reason is, his displeasure at my taking a position here which he considers unsuited to my rank as his cousin.  I have told him that I cannot give way on this point.  It is a little too hard on me to expect that my course in life is to be hampered by prejudices which I think ridiculous.  Obligation may be stretched till it is no better than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know its meaning.  I would not have accepted the position if I had not meant to make it useful and honorable.  I am not bound to regard family dignity in any other light.”