Fred knew little and cared less about Ladislaw and the Casaubons, and his mind never recurred to that discussion till one day calling on Rosamond at his mother’s request to deliver a message as he passed, he happened to see Ladislaw going away.  Fred and Rosamond had little to say to each other now that marriage had removed her from collision with the unpleasantness of brothers, and especially now that he had taken what she held the stupid and even reprehensible step of giving up the Church to take to such a business as Mr. Garth’s.  Hence Fred talked by preference of what he considered indifferent news, and “a propos of that young Ladislaw” mentioned what he had heard at Lowick Parsonage.

Now Lydgate, like Mr. Farebrother, knew a great deal more than he told, and when he had once been set thinking about the relation between Will and Dorothea his conjectures had gone beyond the fact.  He imagined that there was a passionate attachment on both sides, and this struck him as much too serious to gossip about.  He remembered Will’s irritability when he had mentioned Mrs. Casaubon, and was the more circumspect.  On the whole his surmises, in addition to what he knew of the fact, increased his friendliness and tolerance towards Ladislaw, and made him understand the vacillation which kept him at Middlemarch after he had said that he should go away.  It was significant of the separateness between Lydgate’s mind and Rosamond’s that he had no impulse to speak to her on the subject; indeed, he did not quite trust her reticence towards Will.  And he was right there; though he had no vision of the way in which her mind would act in urging her to speak.

When she repeated Fred’s news to Lydgate, he said, “Take care you don’t drop the faintest hint to Ladislaw, Rosy.  He is likely to fly out as if you insulted him.  Of course it is a painful affair.”

Rosamond turned her neck and patted her hair, looking the image of placid indifference.  But the next time Will came when Lydgate was away, she spoke archly about his not going to London as he had threatened.

“I know all about it.  I have a confidential little bird,” said she, showing very pretty airs of her head over the bit of work held high between her active fingers.  “There is a powerful magnet in this neighborhood.”

“To be sure there is.  Nobody knows that better than you,” said Will, with light gallantry, but inwardly prepared to be angry.

“It is really the most charming romance:  Mr. Casaubon jealous, and foreseeing that there was no one else whom Mrs. Casaubon would so much like to marry, and no one who would so much like to marry her as a certain gentleman; and then laying a plan to spoil all by making her forfeit her property if she did marry that gentleman—­ and then—­and then—­and then—­oh, I have no doubt the end will be thoroughly romantic.”

“Great God! what do you mean?” said Will, flushing over face and ears, his features seeming to change as if he had had a violent shake.  “Don’t joke; tell me what you mean.”