"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.
"I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here for a
time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up, and said, "You
would like me to read to you?"
"You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,
with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner. "I am
wakeful: my mind is remarkably lucid."
"I fear that the excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,
remembering Lydgate's cautions.
"No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy."
Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on the same
plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over the pages with
more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert, and he seemed to
anticipate what was coming after a very slight verbal indication,
saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass on to the next head--I omit
the second excursus on Crete." Dorothea was amazed to think of the
bird-like speed with which his mind was surveying the ground where it
had been creeping for years. At last he said--
"Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work to-morrow. I
have deferred it too long, and would gladly see it completed. But you
observe that the principle on which my selection is made, is to give
adequate, and not disproportionate illustration to each of the theses
enumerated in my introduction, as at present sketched. You have
perceived that distinctly, Dorothea?"
"Yes," said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart.
"And now I think that I can take some repose," said Mr. Casaubon. He
laid down again and begged her to put out the lights. When she had
lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull glow on
the hearth, he said--
"Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea."
"What is it?" said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.
"It is that you will let me know, deliberately, whether, in case of my
death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid doing what
I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I should desire."
Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading her
to the conjecture of some intention on her husband's part which might
make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.
"You refuse?" said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.
"No, I do not yet refuse," said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need of
freedom asserting itself within her; "but it is too solemn--I think it
is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant what it will bind me
to. Whatever affection prompted I would do without promising."