Will's certainty as the carriage grew smaller in the distance, had much
more bitterness in it. Very slight matters were enough to gall him in
his sensitive mood, and the sight of Dorothea driving past him while he
felt himself plodding along as a poor devil seeking a position in a
world which in his present temper offered him little that he coveted,
made his conduct seem a mere matter of necessity, and took away the
sustainment of resolve. After all, he had no assurance that she loved
him: could any man pretend that he was simply glad in such a case to
have the suffering all on his own side?
That evening Will spent with the Lydgates; the next evening he was gone.