“I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place.”

“Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine,” said Raffles, adjusting himself in a swaggering attitude.  “I came to see him here before.  I’m not so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a letter—­ what you may call a providential thing.  It’s uncommonly fortunate I met you, though; for I don’t care about seeing my stepson:  he’s not affectionate, and his poor mother’s gone now.  To tell the truth, I came out of love to you, Nick:  I came to get your address, for—­look here!” Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.

Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to linger on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the banker’s life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch that they must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity.  But Caleb was peculiar:  certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were almost absent from his mind; and one of these was curiosity about personal affairs.  Especially if there was anything discreditable to be found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred not to know it; and if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil doings were discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit.  He now spurred his horse, and saying, “I wish you good evening, Mr. Bulstrode; I must be getting home,” set off at a trot.

“You didn’t put your full address to this letter,” Raffles continued.  “That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be. `The Shrubs,’—­they may be anywhere:  you live near at hand, eh?—­ have cut the London concern altogether—­perhaps turned country squire—­ have a rural mansion to invite me to.  Lord, how many years it is ago!  The old lady must have been dead a pretty long while—­gone to glory without the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh?  But, by Jove! you’re very pale and pasty, Nick.  Come, if you’re going home, I’ll walk by your side.”

Mr. Bulstrode’s usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue.  Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning:  sin seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter of private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the divine purposes.  And now, as if by some hideous magic, this loud red figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity—­ an incorporate past which had not entered into his imagination of chastisements.  But Mr. Bulstrode’s thought was busy, and he was not a man to act or speak rashly.

“I was going home,” he said, “but I can defer my ride a little.  And you can, if you please, rest here.”

“Thank you,” said Raffles, making a grimace.  “I don’t care now about seeing my stepson.  I’d rather go home with you.”