prompt:
Chapter: "What suit of grace hath Virtue to put on
     If Vice shall wear as good, and do as well?
     If Wrong, if Craft, if Indiscretion
     Act as fair parts with ends as laudable?
     Which all this mighty volume of events
     The world, the universal map of deeds,
     Strongly controls, and proves from all descents,
     That the directest course still best succeeds.
     For should not grave and learn'd Experience
     That looks with the eyes of all the world beside,
     And with all ages holds intelligence,
     Go safer than Deceit without a guide!
                                --DANIEL: Musophilus.

That change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or
betrayed in his conversation with Lydgate, had been determined in him
by some severe experience which he had gone through since the epoch of
Mr. Larcher's sale, when Raffles had recognized Will Ladislaw, and when
the banker had in vain attempted an act of restitution which might move
Divine Providence to arrest painful consequences.

His certainty that Raffles, unless he were dead, would return to
Middlemarch before long, had been justified.  On Christmas Eve he had
reappeared at The Shrubs.  Bulstrode was at home to receive him, and
hinder his communication with the rest of the family, but he could not
altogether hinder the circumstances of the visit from compromising
himself and alarming his wife.  Raffles proved more unmanageable than
he had shown himself to be in his former appearances, his chronic state
of mental restlessness, the growing effect of habitual intemperance,
quickly shaking off every impression from what was said to him.  He
insisted on staying in the house, and Bulstrode, weighing two sets of
evils, felt that this was at least not a worse alternative than his
going into the town.  He kept him in his own room for the evening and
saw him to bed, Raffles all the while amusing himself with the
annoyance he was causing this decent and highly prosperous
fellow-sinner, an amusement which he facetiously expressed as sympathy
with his friend's pleasure in entertaining a man who had been
serviceable to him, and who had not had all his earnings.  There was a
cunning calculation under this noisy joking--a cool resolve to extract
something the handsomer from Bulstrode as payment for release from this
new application of torture.  But his cunning had a little overcast its
mark.

Bulstrode was indeed more tortured than the coarse fibre of Raffles
could enable him to imagine.  He had told his wife that he was simply
taking care of this wretched creature, the victim of vice, who might
otherwise injure himself; he implied, without the direct form of
falsehood, that there was a family tie which bound him to this care,
and that there were signs of mental alienation in Raffles which urged
caution.  He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the next
morning.  In these hints he felt that he was supplying Mrs. Bulstrode
with precautionary information for his daughters and servants, and
accounting for his allowing no one but himself to enter the room even
with food and drink.  But he sat in an agony of fear lest Raffles
should be overheard in his loud and plain references to past facts--lest
Mrs. Bulstrode should be even tempted to listen at the door.  How
could he hinder her, how betray his terror by opening the door to
detect her?  She was a woman of honest direct habits, and little likely
to take so low a course in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but
fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

In this way Raffles had pushed the torture too far, and produced an
effect which had not been in his plan.  By showing himself hopelessly
unmanageable he had made Bulstrode feel that a strong defiance was the
only resource left.  After taking Raffles to bed that night the banker
ordered his closed carriage to be ready at half-past seven the next
morning.  At six o'clock he had already been long dressed, and had
spent some of his wretchedness in prayer, pleading his motives for
averting the worst evil if in anything he had used falsity and spoken
what was not true before God.  For Bulstrode shrank from a direct lie
with an intensity disproportionate to the number of his more indirect
misdeeds.  But many of these misdeeds were like the subtle muscular
movements which are not taken account of in the consciousness, though
they bring about the end that we fix our mind on and desire.  And it is
only what we are vividly conscious of that we can vividly imagine to be
seen by Omniscience.

Bulstrode carried his candle to the bedside of Raffles, who was
apparently in a painful dream.  He stood silent, hoping that the
presence of the light would serve to waken the sleeper gradually and
gently, for he feared some noise as the consequence of a too sudden
awakening.  He had watched for a couple of minutes or more the
shudderings and pantings which seemed likely to end in waking, when
Raffles, with a long half-stifled moan, started up and stared round him
in terror, trembling and gasping.  But he made no further noise, and
Bulstrode, setting down the candle, awaited his recovery.

It was a quarter of an hour later before Bulstrode, with a cold
peremptoriness of manner which he had not before shown, said, "I came
to call you thus early, Mr. Raffles, because I have ordered the
carriage to be ready at half-past seven, and intend myself to conduct
you as far as Ilsely, where you can either take the railway or await a
coach." Raffles was about to speak, but Bulstrode anticipated him
imperiously with the words, "Be silent, sir, and hear what I have to
say.  I shall supply you with money now, and I will furnish you with a
reasonable sum from time to time, on your application to me by letter;
but if you choose to present yourself here again, if you return to
Middlemarch, if you use your tongue in a manner injurious to me, you
will have to live on such fruits as your malice can bring you, without
help from me.  Nobody will pay you well for blasting my name: I know
the worst you can do against me, and I shall brave it if you dare to
thrust yourself upon me again.  Get up, sir, and do as I order you,
without noise, or I will send for a policeman to take you off my
premises, and you may carry your stories into every pothouse in the
town, but you shall have no sixpence from me to pay your expenses
there."

Bulstrode had rarely in his life spoken with such nervous energy: he
had been deliberating on this speech and its probable effects through a
large part of the night; and though he did not trust to its ultimately
saving him from any return of Raffles, he had concluded that it was the
best throw he could make.  It succeeded in enforcing submission from
the jaded man this morning: his empoisoned system at this moment
quailed before Bulstrode's cold, resolute bearing, and he was taken off
quietly in the carriage before the family breakfast time.  The servants
imagined him to be a poor relation, and were not surprised that a
strict man like their master, who held his head high in the world,
should be ashamed of such a cousin and want to get rid of him.  The
banker's drive of ten miles with his hated companion was a dreary
beginning of the Christmas day; but at the end of the drive, Raffles
had recovered his spirits, and parted in a contentment for which there
was the good reason that the banker had given him a hundred pounds.
Various motives urged Bulstrode to this open-handedness, but he did not
himself inquire closely into all of them.  As he had stood watching
Raffles in his uneasy sleep, it had certainly entered his mind that the
man had been much shattered since the first gift of two hundred pounds.

He had taken care to repeat the incisive statement of his resolve not
to be played on any more; and had tried to penetrate Raffles with the
fact that he had shown the risks of bribing him to be quite equal to
the risks of defying him.  But when, freed from his repulsive presence,
Bulstrode returned to his quiet home, he brought with him no confidence
that he had secured more than a respite.  It was as if he had had a
loathsome dream, and could not shake off its images with their hateful
kindred of sensations--as if on all the pleasant surroundings of his
life a dangerous reptile had left his slimy traces.

Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the
thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of
opinion is threatened with ruin?

Bulstrode was only the more conscious that there was a deposit of
uneasy presentiment in his wife's mind, because she carefully avoided
any allusion to it.  He had been used every day to taste the flavor of
supremacy and the tribute of complete deference: and the certainty that
he was watched or measured with a hidden suspicion of his having some
discreditable secret, made his voice totter when he was speaking to
edification.  Foreseeing, to men of Bulstrode's anxious temperament, is
often worse than seeing; and his imagination continually heightened the
anguish of an imminent disgrace.  Yes, imminent; for if his defiance of
Raffles did not keep the man away--and though he prayed for this result
he hardly hoped for it--the disgrace was certain.  In vain he said to
himself that, if permitted, it would be a divine visitation, a
chastisement, a preparation; he recoiled from the imagined burning; and
he judged that it must be more for the Divine glory that he should
escape dishonor.  That recoil had at last urged him to make
preparations for quitting Middlemarch.  If evil truth must be reported
of him, he would then be at a less scorching distance from the contempt
of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his life would not have
gathered the same wide sensibility, the tormentor, if he pursued him,
would be less formidable.  To leave the place finally would, he knew,
be extremely painful to his wife, and on other grounds he would have
preferred to stay where he had struck root.  Hence he made his
preparations at first in a conditional way, wishing to leave on all
sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any favorable
intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears.  He was
preparing to transfer his management of the Bank, and to give up any
active control of other commercial affairs in the neighborhood, on the
ground of his failing health, but without excluding his future
resumption of such work.  The measure would cause him some added
expense and some diminution of income beyond what he had already
undergone from the general depression of trade; and the Hospital
presented itself as a principal object of outlay on which he could
fairly economize.

This was the experience which had determined his conversation with
Lydgate.  But at this time his arrangements had most of them gone no
farther than a stage at which he could recall them if they proved to be
unnecessary.  He continually deferred the final steps; in the midst of
his fears, like many a man who is in danger of shipwreck or of being
dashed from his carriage by runaway horses, he had a clinging
impression that something would happen to hinder the worst, and that to
spoil his life by a late transplantation might be over-hasty--especially
since it was difficult to account satisfactorily to his wife for the
project of their indefinite exile from the only place where she would
like to live.

Among the affairs Bulstrode had to care for, was the management of the
farm at Stone Court in case of his absence; and on this as well as on
all other matters connected with any houses and land he possessed in or
about Middlemarch, he had consulted Caleb Garth.  Like every one else
who had business of that sort, he wanted to get the agent who was more
anxious for his employer's interests than his own.  With regard to
Stone Court, since Bulstrode wished to retain his hold on the stock,
and to have an arrangement by which he himself could, if he chose,
resume his favorite recreation of superintendence, Caleb had advised
him not to trust to a mere bailiff, but to let the land, stock, and
implements yearly, and take a proportionate share of the proceeds.

"May I trust to you to find me a tenant on these terms, Mr. Garth?"
said Bulstrode.  "And will you mention to me the yearly sum which would
repay you for managing these affairs which we have discussed together?"

"I'll think about it," said Caleb, in his blunt way.  "I'll see how I
can make it out."

If it had not been that he had to consider Fred Vincy's future, Mr.
Garth would not probably have been glad of any addition to his work, of
which his wife was always fearing an excess for him as he grew older.
But on quitting Bulstrode after that conversation, a very alluring idea
occurred to him about this said letting of Stone Court.  What if
Bulstrode would agree to his placing Fred Vincy there on the
understanding that he, Caleb Garth, should be responsible for the
management?  It would be an excellent schooling for Fred; he might make
a modest income there, and still have time left to get knowledge by
helping in other business.  He mentioned his notion to Mrs. Garth with
such evident delight that she could not bear to chill his pleasure by
expressing her constant fear of his undertaking too much.

"The lad would be as happy as two," he said, throwing himself back in
his chair, and looking radiant, "if I could tell him it was all
settled.  Think; Susan!  His mind had been running on that place for
years before old Featherstone died.  And it would be as pretty a turn
of things as could be that he should hold the place in a good
industrious way after all--by his taking to business.  For it's likely
enough Bulstrode might let him go on, and gradually buy the stock.  He
hasn't made up his mind, I can see, whether or not he shall settle
somewhere else as a lasting thing.  I never was better pleased with a
notion in my life.  And then the children might be married by-and-by,
Susan."

"You will not give any hint of the plan to Fred, until you are sure
that Bulstrode would agree to the plan?" said Mrs. Garth, in a tone of
gentle caution.  "And as to marriage, Caleb, we old people need not
help to hasten it."

"Oh, I don't know," said Caleb, swinging his head aside.  "Marriage is
a taming thing.  Fred would want less of my bit and bridle.  However, I
shall say nothing till I know the ground I'm treading on.  I shall
speak to Bulstrode again."

He took his earliest opportunity of doing so.  Bulstrode had anything
but a warm interest in his nephew Fred Vincy, but he had a strong wish
to secure Mr. Garth's services on many scattered points of business at
which he was sure to be a considerable loser, if they were under less
conscientious management.  On that ground he made no objection to Mr.
Garth's proposal; and there was also another reason why he was not
sorry to give a consent which was to benefit one of the Vincy family.
It was that Mrs. Bulstrode, having heard of Lydgate's debts, had been
anxious to know whether her husband could not do something for poor
Rosamond, and had been much troubled on learning from him that
Lydgate's affairs were not easily remediable, and that the wisest plan
was to let them "take their course." Mrs. Bulstrode had then said for
the first time, "I think you are always a little hard towards my
family, Nicholas.  And I am sure I have no reason to deny any of my
relatives.  Too worldly they may be, but no one ever had to say that
they were not respectable."

"My dear Harriet," said Mr. Bulstrode, wincing under his wife's eyes,
which were filling with tears, "I have supplied your brother with a
great deal of capital.  I cannot be expected to take care of his
married children."

That seemed to be true, and Mrs. Bulstrode's remonstrance subsided into
pity for poor Rosamond, whose extravagant education she had always
foreseen the fruits of.

But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Bulstrode felt that when he had to
talk to his wife fully about his plan of quitting Middlemarch, he
should be glad to tell her that he had made an arrangement which might
be for the good of her nephew Fred.  At present he had merely mentioned
to her that he thought of shutting up The Shrubs for a few months, and
taking a house on the Southern Coast.

Hence Mr. Garth got the assurance he desired, namely, that in case of
Bulstrode's departure from Middlemarch for an indefinite time, Fred
Vincy should be allowed to have the tenancy of Stone Court on the terms
proposed.

Caleb was so elated with his hope of this "neat turn" being given to
things, that if his self-control had not been braced by a little
affectionate wifely scolding, he would have betrayed everything to
Mary, wanting "to give the child comfort."  However, he restrained
himself, and kept in strict privacy from Fred certain visits which he
was making to Stone Court, in order to look more thoroughly into the
state of the land and stock, and take a preliminary estimate.  He was
certainly more eager in these visits than the probable speed of events
required him to be; but he was stimulated by a fatherly delight in
occupying his mind with this bit of probable happiness which he held in
store like a hidden birthday gift for Fred and Mary.

"But suppose the whole scheme should turn out to be a castle in the
air?" said Mrs. Garth.

"Well, well," replied Caleb; "the castle will tumble about nobody's
head."

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Bulstrodes decision to withdraw from the new hospital and retire to another area had been prompted by the increasingly bold demands of Raffles. He now comes to Bulstrodes house and insists on staying overnight. The desperate Bulstrode gives him an ultimatum next morning that future demands should be made by letter. He says if Raffles comes there in prison he will report him to the police and take the consequences. His sternness convinces Raffles and he leaves with a hundred pounds. Bulstrode is aware that the matter has not ended. After this he tries to get his affair in order before leaving. He requests Caleb Garth to take charge of Stone Court. Caleb suggests leasing out Stone Court and taking a share of the proceeds. Bulstrode asks him to arrange it. Caleb has the pleasant thought of arranging for Fred to take the lease of Stone Court. Bulstrode agrees to it partly because his wife feels he hasnt helped her relatives. Only Susan urges Caleb to be silent until it has all been arranged.


prompt:
Chapter: "If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee."
                                       --Ecclesiasticus.

Mr. Bulstrode was still seated in his manager's room at the Bank, about
three o'clock of the same day on which he had received Lydgate there,
when the clerk entered to say that his horse was waiting, and also that
Mr. Garth was outside and begged to speak with him.

"By all means," said Bulstrode; and Caleb entered.  "Pray sit down, Mr.
Garth," continued the banker, in his suavest tone.

"I am glad that you arrived just in time to find me here.  I know you
count your minutes."

"Oh," said Caleb, gently, with a slow swing of his head on one side, as
he seated himself and laid his hat on the floor.

He looked at the ground, leaning forward and letting his long fingers
droop between his legs, while each finger moved in succession, as if it
were sharing some thought which filled his large quiet brow.

Mr. Bulstrode, like every one else who knew Caleb, was used to his
slowness in beginning to speak on any topic which he felt to be
important, and rather expected that he was about to recur to the buying
of some houses in Blindman's Court, for the sake of pulling them down,
as a sacrifice of property which would be well repaid by the influx of
air and light on that spot.  It was by propositions of this kind that
Caleb was sometimes troublesome to his employers; but he had usually
found Bulstrode ready to meet him in projects of improvement, and they
had got on well together.  When he spoke again, however, it was to say,
in rather a subdued voice--

"I have just come away from Stone Court, Mr. Bulstrode."

"You found nothing wrong there, I hope," said the banker; "I was there
myself yesterday.  Abel has done well with the lambs this year."

"Why, yes," said Caleb, looking up gravely, "there is something wrong--a
stranger, who is very ill, I think.  He wants a doctor, and I came to
tell you of that.  His name is Raffles."

He saw the shock of his words passing through Bulstrode's frame.  On
this subject the banker had thought that his fears were too constantly
on the watch to be taken by surprise; but he had been mistaken.

"Poor wretch!" he said in a compassionate tone, though his lips
trembled a little.  "Do you know how he came there?"

"I took him myself," said Caleb, quietly--"took him up in my gig.  He
had got down from the coach, and was walking a little beyond the
turning from the toll-house, and I overtook him.  He remembered seeing
me with you once before, at Stone Court, and he asked me to take him
on.  I saw he was ill: it seemed to me the right thing to do, to carry
him under shelter.  And now I think you should lose no time in getting
advice for him." Caleb took up his hat from the floor as he ended, and
rose slowly from his seat.

"Certainly," said Bulstrode, whose mind was very active at this moment.
"Perhaps you will yourself oblige me, Mr. Garth, by calling at Mr.
Lydgate's as you pass--or stay! he may at this hour probably be at the
Hospital.  I will first send my man on the horse there with a note this
instant, and then I will myself ride to Stone Court."

Bulstrode quickly wrote a note, and went out himself to give the
commission to his man.  When he returned, Caleb was standing as before
with one hand on the back of the chair, holding his hat with the other.
In Bulstrode's mind the dominant thought was, "Perhaps Raffles only
spoke to Garth of his illness.  Garth may wonder, as he must have done
before, at this disreputable fellow's claiming intimacy with me; but he
will know nothing.  And he is friendly to me--I can be of use to him."

He longed for some confirmation of this hopeful conjecture, but to have
asked any question as to what Raffles had said or done would have been
to betray fear.

"I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Garth," he said, in his usual
tone of politeness.  "My servant will be back in a few minutes, and I
shall then go myself to see what can be done for this unfortunate man.
Perhaps you had some other business with me?  If so, pray be seated."

"Thank you," said Caleb, making a slight gesture with his right hand to
waive the invitation.  "I wish to say, Mr. Bulstrode, that I must
request you to put your business into some other hands than mine.  I am
obliged to you for your handsome way of meeting me--about the letting
of Stone Court, and all other business.  But I must give it up."  A
sharp certainty entered like a stab into Bulstrode's soul.

"This is sudden, Mr. Garth," was all he could say at first.

"It is," said Caleb; "but it is quite fixed.  I must give it up."

He spoke with a firmness which was very gentle, and yet he could see
that Bulstrode seemed to cower under that gentleness, his face looking
dried and his eyes swerving away from the glance which rested on him.
Caleb felt a deep pity for him, but he could have used no pretexts to
account for his resolve, even if they would have been of any use.

"You have been led to this, I apprehend, by some slanders concerning me
uttered by that unhappy creature," said Bulstrode, anxious now to know
the utmost.

"That is true.  I can't deny that I act upon what I heard from him."

"You are a conscientious man, Mr. Garth--a man, I trust, who feels
himself accountable to God.  You would not wish to injure me by being
too ready to believe a slander," said Bulstrode, casting about for
pleas that might be adapted to his hearer's mind.  "That is a poor
reason for giving up a connection which I think I may say will be
mutually beneficial."

"I would injure no man if I could help it," said Caleb; "even if I
thought God winked at it.  I hope I should have a feeling for my
fellow-creature. But, sir--I am obliged to believe that this Raffles
has told me the truth.  And I can't be happy in working with you, or
profiting by you.  It hurts my mind.  I must beg you to seek another
agent."

"Very well, Mr. Garth.  But I must at least claim to know the worst
that he has told you.  I must know what is the foul speech that I am
liable to be the victim of," said Bulstrode, a certain amount of anger
beginning to mingle with his humiliation before this quiet man who
renounced his benefits.

"That's needless," said Caleb, waving his hand, bowing his head
slightly, and not swerving from the tone which had in it the merciful
intention to spare this pitiable man.  "What he has said to me will
never pass from my lips, unless something now unknown forces it from
me.  If you led a harmful life for gain, and kept others out of their
rights by deceit, to get the more for yourself, I dare say you
repent--you would like to go back, and can't: that must be a bitter
thing"--Caleb paused a moment and shook his head--"it is not for me to
make your life harder to you."

"But you do--you do make it harder to me," said Bulstrode constrained
into a genuine, pleading cry.  "You make it harder to me by turning
your back on me."

"That I'm forced to do," said Caleb, still more gently, lifting up his
hand.  "I am sorry.  I don't judge you and say, he is wicked, and I am
righteous.  God forbid.  I don't know everything.  A man may do wrong,
and his will may rise clear out of it, though he can't get his life
clear.  That's a bad punishment.  If it is so with you,--well, I'm
very sorry for you.  But I have that feeling inside me, that I can't go
on working with you.  That's all, Mr. Bulstrode.  Everything else is
buried, so far as my will goes.  And I wish you good-day."

"One moment, Mr. Garth!" said Bulstrode, hurriedly.  "I may trust then
to your solemn assurance that you will not repeat either to man or
woman what--even if it have any degree of truth in it--is yet a
malicious representation?"  Caleb's wrath was stirred, and he said,
indignantly--

"Why should I have said it if I didn't mean it?  I am in no fear of
you.  Such tales as that will never tempt my tongue."

"Excuse me--I am agitated--I am the victim of this abandoned man."

"Stop a bit! you have got to consider whether you didn't help to make
him worse, when you profited by his vices."

"You are wronging me by too readily believing him," said Bulstrode,
oppressed, as by a nightmare, with the inability to deny flatly what
Raffles might have said; and yet feeling it an escape that Caleb had
not so stated it to him as to ask for that flat denial.

"No," said Caleb, lifting his hand deprecatingly; "I am ready to
believe better, when better is proved.  I rob you of no good chance.
As to speaking, I hold it a crime to expose a man's sin unless I'm
clear it must be done to save the innocent.  That is my way of
thinking, Mr. Bulstrode, and what I say, I've no need to swear.  I wish
you good-day."

Some hours later, when he was at home, Caleb said to his wife,
incidentally, that he had had some little differences with Bulstrode,
and that in consequence, he had given up all notion of taking Stone
Court, and indeed had resigned doing further business for him.

"He was disposed to interfere too much, was he?" said Mrs. Garth,
imagining that her husband had been touched on his sensitive point, and
not been allowed to do what he thought right as to materials and modes
of work.

"Oh," said Caleb, bowing his head and waving his hand gravely.  And
Mrs. Garth knew that this was a sign of his not intending to speak
further on the subject.

As for Bulstrode, he had almost immediately mounted his horse and set
off for Stone Court, being anxious to arrive there before Lydgate.

His mind was crowded with images and conjectures, which were a language
to his hopes and fears, just as we hear tones from the vibrations which
shake our whole system.  The deep humiliation with which he had winced
under Caleb Garth's knowledge of his past and rejection of his
patronage, alternated with and almost gave way to the sense of safety
in the fact that Garth, and no other, had been the man to whom Raffles
had spoken.  It seemed to him a sort of earnest that Providence
intended his rescue from worse consequences; the way being thus left
open for the hope of secrecy.  That Raffles should be afflicted with
illness, that he should have been led to Stone Court rather than
elsewhere--Bulstrode's heart fluttered at the vision of probabilities
which these events conjured up.  If it should turn out that he was
freed from all danger of disgrace--if he could breathe in perfect
liberty--his life should be more consecrated than it had ever been
before.  He mentally lifted up this vow as if it would urge the result
he longed for--he tried to believe in the potency of that prayerful
resolution--its potency to determine death.  He knew that he ought to
say, "Thy will be done;" and he said it often.  But the intense desire
remained that the will of God might be the death of that hated man.

Yet when he arrived at Stone Court he could not see the change in
Raffles without a shock.  But for his pallor and feebleness, Bulstrode
would have called the change in him entirely mental.  Instead of his
loud tormenting mood, he showed an intense, vague terror, and seemed to
deprecate Bulstrode's anger, because the money was all gone--he had
been robbed--it had half of it been taken from him.  He had only come
here because he was ill and somebody was hunting him--somebody was
after him, he had told nobody anything, he had kept his mouth shut.
Bulstrode, not knowing the significance of these symptoms, interpreted
this new nervous susceptibility into a means of alarming Raffles into
true confessions, and taxed him with falsehood in saying that he had
not told anything, since he had just told the man who took him up in
his gig and brought him to Stone Court.  Raffles denied this with
solemn adjurations; the fact being that the links of consciousness were
interrupted in him, and that his minute terror-stricken narrative to
Caleb Garth had been delivered under a set of visionary impulses which
had dropped back into darkness.

Bulstrode's heart sank again at this sign that he could get no grasp
over the wretched man's mind, and that no word of Raffles could be
trusted as to the fact which he most wanted to know, namely, whether or
not he had really kept silence to every one in the neighborhood except
Caleb Garth.  The housekeeper had told him without the least constraint
of manner that since Mr. Garth left, Raffles had asked her for beer,
and after that had not spoken, seeming very ill.  On that side it might
be concluded that there had been no betrayal.  Mrs. Abel thought, like
the servants at The Shrubs, that the strange man belonged to the
unpleasant "kin" who are among the troubles of the rich; she had at
first referred the kinship to Mr. Rigg, and where there was property
left, the buzzing presence of such large blue-bottles seemed natural
enough.  How he could be "kin" to Bulstrode as well was not so clear,
but Mrs. Abel agreed with her husband that there was "no knowing," a
proposition which had a great deal of mental food for her, so that she
shook her head over it without further speculation.

In less than an hour Lydgate arrived.  Bulstrode met him outside the
wainscoted parlor, where Raffles was, and said--

"I have called you in, Mr. Lydgate, to an unfortunate man who was once
in my employment, many years ago.  Afterwards he went to America, and
returned I fear to an idle dissolute life.  Being destitute, he has a
claim on me.  He was slightly connected with Rigg, the former owner of
this place, and in consequence found his way here.  I believe he is
seriously ill: apparently his mind is affected.  I feel bound to do the
utmost for him."

Lydgate, who had the remembrance of his last conversation with
Bulstrode strongly upon him, was not disposed to say an unnecessary
word to him, and bowed slightly in answer to this account; but just
before entering the room he turned automatically and said, "What is his
name?"--to know names being as much a part of the medical man's
accomplishment as of the practical politician's.

"Raffles, John Raffles," said Bulstrode, who hoped that whatever became
of Raffles, Lydgate would never know any more of him.

When he had thoroughly examined and considered the patient, Lydgate
ordered that he should go to bed, and be kept there in as complete
quiet as possible, and then went with Bulstrode into another room.

"It is a serious case, I apprehend," said the banker, before Lydgate
began to speak.

"No--and yes," said Lydgate, half dubiously.  "It is difficult to
decide as to the possible effect of long-standing complications; but
the man had a robust constitution to begin with.  I should not expect
this attack to be fatal, though of course the system is in a ticklish
state.  He should be well watched and attended to."

"I will remain here myself," said Bulstrode.  "Mrs. Abel and her
husband are inexperienced.  I can easily remain here for the night, if
you will oblige me by taking a note for Mrs. Bulstrode."

"I should think that is hardly necessary," said Lydgate.  "He seems
tame and terrified enough.  He might become more unmanageable.  But
there is a man here--is there not?"

"I have more than once stayed here a few nights for the sake of
seclusion," said Bulstrode, indifferently; "I am quite disposed to do
so now.  Mrs. Abel and her husband can relieve or aid me, if necessary."

"Very well.  Then I need give my directions only to you," said Lydgate,
not feeling surprised at a little peculiarity in Bulstrode.

"You think, then, that the case is hopeful?" said Bulstrode, when
Lydgate had ended giving his orders.

"Unless there turn out to be further complications, such as I have not
at present detected--yes," said Lydgate.  "He may pass on to a worse
stage; but I should not wonder if he got better in a few days, by
adhering to the treatment I have prescribed.  There must be firmness.
Remember, if he calls for liquors of any sort, not to give them to him.
In my opinion, men in his condition are oftener killed by treatment
than by the disease.  Still, new symptoms may arise.  I shall come
again to-morrow morning."

After waiting for the note to be carried to Mrs. Bulstrode, Lydgate
rode away, forming no conjectures, in the first instance, about the
history of Raffles, but rehearsing the whole argument, which had lately
been much stirred by the publication of Dr. Ware's abundant experience
in America, as to the right way of treating cases of alcoholic
poisoning such as this.  Lydgate, when abroad, had already been
interested in this question: he was strongly convinced against the
prevalent practice of allowing alcohol and persistently administering
large doses of opium; and he had repeatedly acted on this conviction
with a favorable result.

"The man is in a diseased state," he thought, "but there's a good deal
of wear in him still.  I suppose he is an object of charity to
Bulstrode.  It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie
side by side in men's dispositions.  Bulstrode seems the most
unsympathetic fellow I ever saw about some people, and yet he has taken
no end of trouble, and spent a great deal of money, on benevolent
objects.  I suppose he has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven
cares for--he has made up his mind that it doesn't care for me."

This streak of bitterness came from a plenteous source, and kept
widening in the current of his thought as he neared Lowick Gate.  He
had not been there since his first interview with Bulstrode in the
morning, having been found at the Hospital by the banker's messenger;
and for the first time he was returning to his home without the vision
of any expedient in the background which left him a hope of raising
money enough to deliver him from the coming destitution of everything
which made his married life tolerable--everything which saved him and
Rosamond from that bare isolation in which they would be forced to
recognize how little of a comfort they could be to each other.  It was
more bearable to do without tenderness for himself than to see that his
own tenderness could make no amends for the lack of other things to
her.  The sufferings of his own pride from humiliations past and to
come were keen enough, yet they were hardly distinguishable to himself
from that more acute pain which dominated them--the pain of foreseeing
that Rosamond would come to regard him chiefly as the cause of
disappointment and unhappiness to her.  He had never liked the
makeshifts of poverty, and they had never before entered into his
prospects for himself; but he was beginning now to imagine how two
creatures who loved each other, and had a stock of thoughts in common,
might laugh over their shabby furniture, and their calculations how far
they could afford butter and eggs.  But the glimpse of that poetry
seemed as far off from him as the carelessness of the golden age; in
poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look
small in.  He got down from his horse in a very sad mood, and went into
the house, not expecting to be cheered except by his dinner, and
reflecting that before the evening closed it would be wise to tell
Rosamond of his application to Bulstrode and its failure.  It would be
well not to lose time in preparing her for the worst.

But his dinner waited long for him before he was able to eat it.  For
on entering he found that Dover's agent had already put a man in the
house, and when he asked where Mrs. Lydgate was, he was told that she
was in her bedroom.  He went up and found her stretched on the bed pale
and silent, without an answer even in her face to any word or look of
his.  He sat down by the bed and leaning over her said with almost a
cry of prayer--

"Forgive me for this misery, my poor Rosamond!  Let us only love one
another."

She looked at him silently, still with the blank despair on her face;
but then the tears began to fill her blue eyes, and her lip trembled.
The strong man had had too much to bear that day.  He let his head fall
beside hers and sobbed.

He did not hinder her from going to her father early in the morning--it
seemed now that he ought not to hinder her from doing as she
pleased.  In half an hour she came back, and said that papa and mamma
wished her to go and stay with them while things were in this miserable
state.  Papa said he could do nothing about the debt--if he paid this,
there would be half-a-dozen more.  She had better come back home again
till Lydgate had got a comfortable home for her.  "Do you object,
Tertius?"

"Do as you like," said Lydgate.  "But things are not coming to a crisis
immediately.  There is no hurry."

"I should not go till to-morrow," said Rosamond; "I shall want to pack
my clothes."

"Oh, I would wait a little longer than to-morrow--there is no knowing
what may happen," said Lydgate, with bitter irony.  "I may get my neck
broken, and that may make things easier to you."

It was Lydgate's misfortune and Rosamond's too, that his tenderness
towards her, which was both an emotional prompting and a
well-considered resolve, was inevitably interrupted by these outbursts
of indignation either ironical or remonstrant.  She thought them
totally unwarranted, and the repulsion which this exceptional severity
excited in her was in danger of making the more persistent tenderness
unacceptable.

"I see you do not wish me to go," she said, with chill mildness; "why
can you not say so, without that kind of violence?  I shall stay until
you request me to do otherwise."

Lydgate said no more, but went out on his rounds.  He felt bruised and
shattered, and there was a dark line under his eyes which Rosamond had
not seen before.  She could not bear to look at him.  Tertius had a way
of taking things which made them a great deal worse for her.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: A solemn Caleb calls in Bulstrode at he bank. He tells him he has picked up a seriously ill person called Raffles in his gig and left him at Stone Court. He advises Bulstrode to arrange immediate medical care for Raffles. Before leaving, Caleb asks Bulstrode to relieve him if all work related to Stone Court. He is very determined about this. Since Raffles has obviously revealed a lot, Bulstrode attempts to patch up his reputation. Caleb declares firmly that it is not his job to judge any one or to discuss anothers personal affairs. But he insists that he cannot accept profit from any corrupt business or action. Calebs simplicity and lack of smugness impresses and hurts Bulstrode deeply. His insistence on not doing wrong "even if I thought God winked at it" exposes all Bulstrodes sham piety. Bulstrode then goes to Stone Court where he finds Raffles delirious and speechless. He tells Lydgate the man is mentally unstable, a relative of Rigg and slightly connected with himself. He is dismayed on hearing that Lydgate does not think the illness is fatal. Bulstrode undertakes to nurse Raffles with the help of his servants, that night. He is instructed strictly not to give him any alcohol. Lydgate then leaves, pondering over Bulstrodes "kindness" to Raffles and harshness towards himself. He arrives home to find Rosamond prostrate, with his creditors employees in the house. She proposes to go to her parents house for some time. Lydgate responds bitterly. Rosamond coldly offers to stay if it pleases him. They are further alienated from each other.


prompt:
Chapter: Our deeds still travel with us from afar,
    And what we have been makes us what we are."

Bulstrode's first object after Lydgate had left Stone Court was to
examine Raffles's pockets, which he imagined were sure to carry signs
in the shape of hotel-bills of the places he had stopped in, if he had
not told the truth in saying that he had come straight from Liverpool
because he was ill and had no money.  There were various bills crammed
into his pocketbook, but none of a later date than Christmas at any
other place, except one, which bore date that morning.  This was
crumpled up with a hand-bill about a horse-fair in one of his
tail-pockets, and represented the cost of three days' stay at an inn at
Bilkley, where the fair was held--a town at least forty miles from
Middlemarch.  The bill was heavy, and since Raffles had no luggage with
him, it seemed probable that he had left his portmanteau behind in
payment, in order to save money for his travelling fare; for his purse
was empty, and he had only a couple of sixpences and some loose pence
in his pockets.

Bulstrode gathered a sense of safety from these indications that
Raffles had really kept at a distance from Middlemarch since his
memorable visit at Christmas.  At a distance and among people who were
strangers to Bulstrode, what satisfaction could there be to Raffles's
tormenting, self-magnifying vein in telling old scandalous stories
about a Middlemarch banker?  And what harm if he did talk?  The chief
point now was to keep watch over him as long as there was any danger of
that intelligible raving, that unaccountable impulse to tell, which
seemed to have acted towards Caleb Garth; and Bulstrode felt much
anxiety lest some such impulse should come over him at the sight of
Lydgate.  He sat up alone with him through the night, only ordering the
housekeeper to lie down in her clothes, so as to be ready when he
called her, alleging his own indisposition to sleep, and his anxiety to
carry out the doctor's orders.  He did carry them out faithfully,
although Raffles was incessantly asking for brandy, and declaring that
he was sinking away--that the earth was sinking away from under him.
He was restless and sleepless, but still quailing and manageable.  On
the offer of the food ordered by Lydgate, which he refused, and the
denial of other things which he demanded, he seemed to concentrate all
his terror on Bulstrode, imploringly deprecating his anger, his revenge
on him by starvation, and declaring with strong oaths that he had never
told any mortal a word against him.  Even this Bulstrode felt that he
would not have liked Lydgate to hear; but a more alarming sign of
fitful alternation in his delirium was, that in-the morning twilight
Raffles suddenly seemed to imagine a doctor present, addressing him and
declaring that Bulstrode wanted to starve him to death out of revenge
for telling, when he never had told.

Bulstrode's native imperiousness and strength of determination served
him well.  This delicate-looking man, himself nervously perturbed,
found the needed stimulus in his strenuous circumstances, and through
that difficult night and morning, while he had the air of an animated
corpse returned to movement without warmth, holding the mastery by its
chill impassibility his mind was intensely at work thinking of what he
had to guard against and what would win him security.  Whatever prayers
he might lift up, whatever statements he might inwardly make of this
man's wretched spiritual condition, and the duty he himself was under
to submit to the punishment divinely appointed for him rather than to
wish for evil to another--through all this effort to condense words
into a solid mental state, there pierced and spread with irresistible
vividness the images of the events he desired.  And in the train of
those images came their apology.  He could not but see the death of
Raffles, and see in it his own deliverance.  What was the removal of
this wretched creature?  He was impenitent--but were not public
criminals impenitent?--yet the law decided on their fate.  Should
Providence in this case award death, there was no sin in contemplating
death as the desirable issue--if he kept his hands from hastening
it--if he scrupulously did what was prescribed.  Even here there might
be a mistake: human prescriptions were fallible things: Lydgate had
said that treatment had hastened death,--why not his own method of
treatment?  But of course intention was everything in the question of
right and wrong.

And Bulstrode set himself to keep his intention separate from his
desire.  He inwardly declared that he intended to obey orders.  Why
should he have got into any argument about the validity of these
orders?  It was only the common trick of desire--which avails itself of
any irrelevant scepticism, finding larger room for itself in all
uncertainty about effects, in every obscurity that looks like the
absence of law.  Still, he did obey the orders.

His anxieties continually glanced towards Lydgate, and his remembrance
of what had taken place between them the morning before was accompanied
with sensibilities which had not been roused at all during the actual
scene.  He had then cared but little about Lydgate's painful
impressions with regard to the suggested change in the Hospital, or
about the disposition towards himself which what he held to be his
justifiable refusal of a rather exorbitant request might call forth.
He recurred to the scene now with a perception that he had probably
made Lydgate his enemy, and with an awakened desire to propitiate him,
or rather to create in him a strong sense of personal obligation.  He
regretted that he had not at once made even an unreasonable
money-sacrifice. For in case of unpleasant suspicions, or even
knowledge gathered from the raving of Raffles, Bulstrode would have
felt that he had a defence in Lydgate's mind by having conferred a
momentous benefit on him.  But the regret had perhaps come too late.

Strange, piteous conflict in the soul of this unhappy man, who had
longed for years to be better than he was--who had taken his selfish
passions into discipline and clad them in severe robes, so that he had
walked with them as a devout choir, till now that a terror had risen
among them, and they could chant no longer, but threw out their common
cries for safety.

It was nearly the middle of the day before Lydgate arrived: he had
meant to come earlier, but had been detained, he said; and his
shattered looks were noticed by Balstrode.  But he immediately threw
himself into the consideration of the patient, and inquired strictly
into all that had occurred.  Raffles was worse, would take hardly any
food, was persistently wakeful and restlessly raving; but still not
violent.  Contrary to Bulstrode's alarmed expectation, he took little
notice of Lydgate's presence, and continued to talk or murmur
incoherently.

"What do you think of him?" said Bulstrode, in private.

"The symptoms are worse."

"You are less hopeful?"

"No; I still think he may come round.  Are you going to stay here
yourself?" said Lydgate, looking at Bulstrode with an abrupt question,
which made him uneasy, though in reality it was not due to any
suspicious conjecture.

"Yes, I think so," said Bulstrode, governing himself and speaking with
deliberation.  "Mrs. Bulstrode is advised of the reasons which detain
me.  Mrs. Abel and her husband are not experienced enough to be left
quite alone, and this kind of responsibility is scarcely included in
their service of me.  You have some fresh instructions, I presume."

The chief new instruction that Lydgate had to give was on the
administration of extremely moderate doses of opium, in case of the
sleeplessness continuing after several hours.  He had taken the
precaution of bringing opium in his pocket, and he gave minute
directions to Bulstrode as to the doses, and the point at which they
should cease.  He insisted on the risk of not ceasing; and repeated his
order that no alcohol should be given.

"From what I see of the case," he ended, "narcotism is the only thing I
should be much afraid of.  He may wear through even without much food.
There's a good deal of strength in him."

"You look ill yourself, Mr. Lydgate--a most unusual, I may say
unprecedented thing in my knowledge of you," said Bulstrode, showing a
solicitude as unlike his indifference the day before, as his present
recklessness about his own fatigue was unlike his habitual
self-cherishing anxiety.  "I fear you are harassed."

"Yes, I am," said Lydgate, brusquely, holding his hat, and ready to go.

"Something new, I fear," said Bulstrode, inquiringly.  "Pray be seated."

"No, thank you," said Lydgate, with some hauteur. "I mentioned to you
yesterday what was the state of my affairs.  There is nothing to add,
except that the execution has since then been actually put into my
house.  One can tell a good deal of trouble in a short sentence.  I
will say good morning."

"Stay, Mr. Lydgate, stay," said Bulstrode; "I have been reconsidering
this subject.  I was yesterday taken by surprise, and saw it
superficially.  Mrs. Bulstrode is anxious for her niece, and I myself
should grieve at a calamitous change in your position.  Claims on me
are numerous, but on reconsideration, I esteem it right that I should
incur a small sacrifice rather than leave you unaided.  You said, I
think, that a thousand pounds would suffice entirely to free you from
your burthens, and enable you to recover a firm stand?"

"Yes," said Lydgate, a great leap of joy within him surmounting every
other feeling; "that would pay all my debts, and leave me a little on
hand.  I could set about economizing in our way of living.  And
by-and-by my practice might look up."

"If you will wait a moment, Mr. Lydgate, I will draw a check to that
amount.  I am aware that help, to be effectual in these cases, should
be thorough."

While Bulstrode wrote, Lydgate turned to the window thinking of his
home--thinking of his life with its good start saved from frustration,
its good purposes still unbroken.

"You can give me a note of hand for this, Mr. Lydgate," said the
banker, advancing towards him with the check.  "And by-and-by, I hope,
you may be in circumstances gradually to repay me.  Meanwhile, I have
pleasure in thinking that you will be released from further difficulty."

"I am deeply obliged to you," said Lydgate.  "You have restored to me
the prospect of working with some happiness and some chance of good."

It appeared to him a very natural movement in Bulstrode that he should
have reconsidered his refusal: it corresponded with the more munificent
side of his character.  But as he put his hack into a canter, that he
might get the sooner home, and tell the good news to Rosamond, and get
cash at the bank to pay over to Dover's agent, there crossed his mind,
with an unpleasant impression, as from a dark-winged flight of evil
augury across his vision, the thought of that contrast in himself which
a few months had brought--that he should be overjoyed at being under a
strong personal obligation--that he should be overjoyed at getting
money for himself from Bulstrode.

The banker felt that he had done something to nullify one cause of
uneasiness, and yet he was scarcely the easier.  He did not measure the
quantity of diseased motive which had made him wish for Lydgate's
good-will, but the quantity was none the less actively there, like an
irritating agent in his blood.  A man vows, and yet will not cast away
the means of breaking his vow.  Is it that he distinctly means to break
it?  Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in
him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his
muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the
reasons for his vow.  Raffles, recovering quickly, returning to the
free use of his odious powers--how could Bulstrode wish for that?
Raffles dead was the image that brought release, and indirectly he
prayed for that way of release, beseeching that, if it were possible,
the rest of his days here below might be freed from the threat of an
ignominy which would break him utterly as an instrument of God's
service.  Lydgate's opinion was not on the side of promise that this
prayer would be fulfilled; and as the day advanced, Bulstrode felt
himself getting irritated at the persistent life in this man, whom he
would fain have seen sinking into the silence of death: imperious will
stirred murderous impulses towards this brute life, over which will, by
itself, had no power.  He said inwardly that he was getting too much
worn; he would not sit up with the patient to-night, but leave him to
Mrs. Abel, who, if necessary, could call her husband.

At six o'clock, Raffles, having had only fitful perturbed snatches of
sleep, from which he waked with fresh restlessness and perpetual cries
that he was sinking away, Bulstrode began to administer the opium
according to Lydgate's directions.  At the end of half an hour or more
he called Mrs. Abel and told her that he found himself unfit for
further watching.  He must now consign the patient to her care; and he
proceeded to repeat to her Lydgate's directions as to the quantity of
each dose.  Mrs. Abel had not before known anything of Lydgate's
prescriptions; she had simply prepared and brought whatever Bulstrode
ordered, and had done what he pointed out to her.  She began now to ask
what else she should do besides administering the opium.

"Nothing at present, except the offer of the soup or the soda-water:
you can come to me for further directions.  Unless there is any
important change, I shall not come into the room again to-night. You
will ask your husband for help if necessary.  I must go to bed early."

"You've much need, sir, I'm sure," said Mrs. Abel, "and to take
something more strengthening than what you've done."

Bulstrode went away now without anxiety as to what Raffles might say in
his raving, which had taken on a muttering incoherence not likely to
create any dangerous belief.  At any rate he must risk this.  He went
down into the wainscoted parlor first, and began to consider whether he
would not have his horse saddled and go home by the moonlight, and give
up caring for earthly consequences.  Then, he wished that he had begged
Lydgate to come again that evening.  Perhaps he might deliver a
different opinion, and think that Raffles was getting into a less
hopeful state.  Should he send for Lydgate?  If Raffles were really
getting worse, and slowly dying, Bulstrode felt that he could go to bed
and sleep in gratitude to Providence.  But was he worse?  Lydgate might
come and simply say that he was going on as he expected, and predict
that he would by-and-by fall into a good sleep, and get well.  What was
the use of sending for him?  Bulstrode shrank from that result.  No
ideas or opinions could hinder him from seeing the one probability to
be, that Raffles recovered would be just the same man as before, with
his strength as a tormentor renewed, obliging him to drag away his wife
to spend her years apart from her friends and native place, carrying an
alienating suspicion against him in her heart.

He had sat an hour and a half in this conflict by the firelight only,
when a sudden thought made him rise and light the bed-candle, which he
had brought down with him.  The thought was, that he had not told Mrs.
Abel when the doses of opium must cease.

He took hold of the candlestick, but stood motionless for a long while.
She might already have given him more than Lydgate had prescribed.  But
it was excusable in him, that he should forget part of an order, in his
present wearied condition.  He walked up-stairs, candle in hand, not
knowing whether he should straightway enter his own room and go to bed,
or turn to the patient's room and rectify his omission.  He paused in
the passage, with his face turned towards Raffles's room, and he could
hear him moaning and murmuring.  He was not asleep, then.  Who could
know that Lydgate's prescription would not be better disobeyed than
followed, since there was still no sleep?

He turned into his own room.  Before he had quite undressed, Mrs. Abel
rapped at the door; he opened it an inch, so that he could hear her
speak low.

"If you please, sir, should I have no brandy nor nothing to give the
poor creetur?  He feels sinking away, and nothing else will he
swaller--and but little strength in it, if he did--only the opium.  And
he says more and more he's sinking down through the earth."

To her surprise, Mr. Bulstrode did not answer.  A struggle was going on
within him.

"I think he must die for want o' support, if he goes on in that way.
When I nursed my poor master, Mr. Robisson, I had to give him port-wine
and brandy constant, and a big glass at a time," added Mrs. Abel, with
a touch of remonstrance in her tone.

But again Mr. Bulstrode did not answer immediately, and she continued,
"It's not a time to spare when people are at death's door, nor would
you wish it, sir, I'm sure.  Else I should give him our own bottle o'
rum as we keep by us.  But a sitter-up so as you've been, and doing
everything as laid in your power--"

Here a key was thrust through the inch of doorway, and Mr. Bulstrode
said huskily, "That is the key of the wine-cooler. You will find plenty
of brandy there."

Early in the morning--about six--Mr. Bulstrode rose and spent some time
in prayer.  Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily
candid--necessarily goes to the roots of action?  Private prayer is
inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent
himself just as he is, even in his own reflections?  Bulstrode had not
yet unravelled in his thought the confused promptings of the last
four-and-twenty hours.

He listened in the passage, and could hear hard stertorous breathing.
Then he walked out in the garden, and looked at the early rime on the
grass and fresh spring leaves.  When he re-entered the house, he felt
startled at the sight of Mrs. Abel.

"How is your patient--asleep, I think?" he said, with an attempt at
cheerfulness in his tone.

"He's gone very deep, sir," said Mrs. Abel.  "He went off gradual
between three and four o'clock.  Would you please to go and look at
him?  I thought it no harm to leave him.  My man's gone afield, and the
little girl's seeing to the kettles."

Bulstrode went up.  At a glance he knew that Raffles was not in the
sleep which brings revival, but in the sleep which streams deeper and
deeper into the gulf of death.

He looked round the room and saw a bottle with some brandy in it, and
the almost empty opium phial.  He put the phial out of sight, and
carried the brandy-bottle down-stairs with him, locking it again in the
wine-cooler.

While breakfasting he considered whether he should ride to Middlemarch
at once, or wait for Lydgate's arrival.  He decided to wait, and told
Mrs. Abel that she might go about her work--he could watch in the
bed-chamber.

As he sat there and beheld the enemy of his peace going irrevocably
into silence, he felt more at rest than he had done for many months.
His conscience was soothed by the enfolding wing of secrecy, which
seemed just then like an angel sent down for his relief.  He drew out
his pocket-book to review various memoranda there as to the
arrangements he had projected and partly carried out in the prospect of
quitting Middlemarch, and considered how far he would let them stand or
recall them, now that his absence would be brief.  Some economies which
he felt desirable might still find a suitable occasion in his temporary
withdrawal from management, and he hoped still that Mrs. Casaubon would
take a large share in the expenses of the Hospital.  In that way the
moments passed, until a change in the stertorous breathing was marked
enough to draw his attention wholly to the bed, and forced him to think
of the departing life, which had once been subservient to his
own--which he had once been glad to find base enough for him to act on
as he would.  It was his gladness then which impelled him now to be
glad that the life was at an end.

And who could say that the death of Raffles had been hastened?  Who
knew what would have saved him?

Lydgate arrived at half-past ten, in time to witness the final pause of
the breath.  When he entered the room Bulstrode observed a sudden
expression in his face, which was not so much surprise as a recognition
that he had not judged correctly.  He stood by the bed in silence for
some time, with his eyes turned on the dying man, but with that subdued
activity of expression which showed that he was carrying on an inward
debate.

"When did this change begin?" said he, looking at Bulstrode.

"I did not watch by him last night," said Bulstrode.  "I was over-worn,
and left him under Mrs. Abel's care.  She said that he sank into sleep
between three and four o'clock.  When I came in before eight he was
nearly in this condition."

Lydgate did not ask another question, but watched in silence until he
said, "It's all over."

This morning Lydgate was in a state of recovered hope and freedom.  He
had set out on his work with all his old animation, and felt himself
strong enough to bear all the deficiencies of his married life.  And he
was conscious that Bulstrode had been a benefactor to him.  But he was
uneasy about this case.  He had not expected it to terminate as it had
done.  Yet he hardly knew how to put a question on the subject to
Bulstrode without appearing to insult him; and if he examined the
housekeeper--why, the man was dead.  There seemed to be no use in
implying that somebody's ignorance or imprudence had killed him.  And
after all, he himself might be wrong.

He and Bulstrode rode back to Middlemarch together, talking of many
things--chiefly cholera and the chances of the Reform Bill in the House
of Lords, and the firm resolve of the political Unions.  Nothing was
said about Raffles, except that Bulstrode mentioned the necessity of
having a grave for him in Lowick churchyard, and observed that, so far
as he knew, the poor man had no connections, except Rigg, whom he had
stated to be unfriendly towards him.

On returning home Lydgate had a visit from Mr. Farebrother.  The Vicar
had not been in the town the day before, but the news that there was an
execution in Lydgate's house had got to Lowick by the evening, having
been carried by Mr. Spicer, shoemaker and parish-clerk, who had it from
his brother, the respectable bell-hanger in Lowick Gate.  Since that
evening when Lydgate had come down from the billiard room with Fred
Vincy, Mr. Farebrother's thoughts about him had been rather gloomy.
Playing at the Green Dragon once or oftener might have been a trifle in
another man; but in Lydgate it was one of several signs that he was
getting unlike his former self.  He was beginning to do things for
which he had formerly even an excessive scorn.  Whatever certain
dissatisfactions in marriage, which some silly tinklings of gossip had
given him hints of, might have to do with this change, Mr. Farebrother
felt sure that it was chiefly connected with the debts which were being
more and more distinctly reported, and he began to fear that any notion
of Lydgate's having resources or friends in the background must be
quite illusory.  The rebuff he had met with in his first attempt to win
Lydgate's confidence, disinclined him to a second; but this news of the
execution being actually in the house, determined the Vicar to overcome
his reluctance.

Lydgate had just dismissed a poor patient, in whom he was much
interested, and he came forward to put out his hand--with an open
cheerfulness which surprised Mr. Farebrother.  Could this too be a
proud rejection of sympathy and help?  Never mind; the sympathy and
help should be offered.

"How are you, Lydgate?  I came to see you because I had heard something
which made me anxious about you," said the Vicar, in the tone of a good
brother, only that there was no reproach in it.  They were both seated
by this time, and Lydgate answered immediately--

"I think I know what you mean.  You had heard that there was an
execution in the house?"

"Yes; is it true?"

"It was true," said Lydgate, with an air of freedom, as if he did not
mind talking about the affair now.  "But the danger is over; the debt
is paid.  I am out of my difficulties now: I shall be freed from debts,
and able, I hope, to start afresh on a better plan."

"I am very thankful to hear it," said the Vicar, falling back in his
chair, and speaking with that low-toned quickness which often follows
the removal of a load.  "I like that better than all the news in the
'Times.' I confess I came to you with a heavy heart."

"Thank you for coming," said Lydgate, cordially.  "I can enjoy the
kindness all the more because I am happier.  I have certainly been a
good deal crushed.  I'm afraid I shall find the bruises still painful
by-and by," he added, smiling rather sadly; "but just now I can only
feel that the torture-screw is off."

Mr. Farebrother was silent for a moment, and then said earnestly, "My
dear fellow, let me ask you one question.  Forgive me if I take a
liberty."

"I don't believe you will ask anything that ought to offend me."

"Then--this is necessary to set my heart quite at rest--you have
not--have you?--in order to pay your debts, incurred another debt which
may harass you worse hereafter?"

"No," said Lydgate, coloring slightly.  "There is no reason why I
should not tell you--since the fact is so--that the person to whom I am
indebted is Bulstrode.  He has made me a very handsome advance--a
thousand pounds--and he can afford to wait for repayment."

"Well, that is generous," said Mr. Farebrother, compelling himself to
approve of the man whom he disliked.  His delicate feeling shrank from
dwelling even in his thought on the fact that he had always urged
Lydgate to avoid any personal entanglement with Bulstrode.  He added
immediately, "And Bulstrode must naturally feel an interest in your
welfare, after you have worked with him in a way which has probably
reduced your income instead of adding to it.  I am glad to think that
he has acted accordingly."

Lydgate felt uncomfortable under these kindly suppositions.  They made
more distinct within him the uneasy consciousness which had shown its
first dim stirrings only a few hours before, that Bulstrode's motives
for his sudden beneficence following close upon the chillest
indifference might be merely selfish.  He let the kindly suppositions
pass.  He could not tell the history of the loan, but it was more
vividly present with him than ever, as well as the fact which the Vicar
delicately ignored--that this relation of personal indebtedness to
Bulstrode was what he had once been most resolved to avoid.

He began, instead of answering, to speak of his projected economies,
and of his having come to look at his life from a different point of
view.

"I shall set up a surgery," he said.  "I really think I made a mistaken
effort in that respect.  And if Rosamond will not mind, I shall take an
apprentice.  I don't like these things, but if one carries them out
faithfully they are not really lowering.  I have had a severe galling
to begin with: that will make the small rubs seem easy."

Poor Lydgate! the "if Rosamond will not mind," which had fallen from
him involuntarily as part of his thought, was a significant mark of the
yoke he bore.  But Mr. Farebrother, whose hopes entered strongly into
the same current with Lydgate's, and who knew nothing about him that
could now raise a melancholy presentiment, left him with affectionate
congratulation.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Bulstrode goes through Raffles pockets to find out where he has been staying. All the evidence points to his having been far form Middlemarch before his illness. Bulstrode strictly follows Lydgates instructions and ban on alcohol for the sick man. Raffles raves and abuses him and charges him with taking revenge by starvation, but Bulstrode is resolute. Still he cant prevent himself from trying to ensure Lydgates co-operation. He decides to lend him the thousand pounds refused earlier. Lydgate advises small doses of opium, and no alcohol. Before he leaves, Bulstrode offers him the money, saying he has reconsidered on account of his wifes appeal to help her family. Lydgate is overjoyed. He feels his good purposes are not totally doomed, he has the chance to reorganize and start again. That night Bulstrode is tired and irritated with Raffles and asks Mrs. Abel, his housekeeper, to watch over the patient. He is tempted during the night to give more opium than prescribed, but he fights the temptation. Still later, Mrs. Abel, touched by Raffles suffering requests him to let her give him brandy. Bulstrode hesitates for some time. Finally, he gives her the keys to the wine cellar. In the morning, he prays, looks at the comatose condition of Raffles, then conceals the opium vial and brandy bottle. Lydgate arrives in time to hear Raffles last breath. He is puzzled about this case which he had not considered fatal, but he feels he could be mistaken. Farebrother visits Lydgate, having heard of his mounting debts, to find him cheerful as "the torture-screw is off." But Farebrothers friendly inquiry, about Bulstrode "helpful" loan, only raises more doubts in Lydgates own mind about Bulstrodes motives.