BOOK VII. TWO TEMPTATIONS.
71. CHAPTER LXXI.
(continued)
Mr. Hawley was not slow to perceive that there was no handle
for the law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the
circumstances of his death. He had himself ridden to Lowick village
that he might look at the register and talk over the whole matter
with Mr. Farebrother, who was not more surprised than the lawyer
that an ugly secret should have come to light about Bulstrode,
though he had always had justice enough in him to hinder his antipathy
from turning into conclusions. But while they were talking another
combination was silently going forward in Mr. Farebrother's mind,
which foreshadowed what was soon to be loudly spoken of in Middlemarch
as a necessary "putting of two and two together." With the reasons
which kept Bulstrode in dread of Raffles there flashed the thought
that the dread might have something to do with his munificence
towards his medical man; and though he resisted the suggestion
that it had been consciously accepted in any way as a bribe, he had
a foreboding that this complication of things might be of malignant
effect on Lydgate's reputation. He perceived that Mr. Hawley knew
nothing at present of the sudden relief from debt, and he himself
was careful to glide away from all approaches towards the subject.
"Well," he said, with a deep breath, wanting to wind up the
illimitable discussion of what might have been, though nothing could
be legally proven, "it is a strange story. So our mercurial Ladislaw
has a queer genealogy! A high-spirited young lady and a musical
Polish patriot made a likely enough stock for him to spring from,
but I should never have suspected a grafting of the Jew pawnbroker.
However, there's no knowing what a mixture will turn out beforehand.
Some sorts of dirt serve to clarify."
"It's just what I should have expected," said Mr. Hawley,
mounting his horse. "Any cursed alien blood, Jew, Corsican, or Gypsy."
"I know he's one of your black sheep, Hawley. But he is really
a disinterested, unworldly fellow," said Mr. Farebrother, smiling.
"Ay, ay, that is your Whiggish twist," said Mr. Hawley, who had been
in the habit of saying apologetically that Farebrother was such
a damned pleasant good-hearted fellow you would mistake him for a Tory.
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