Chapter: It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from
    what outsiders call inconsistency--putting a dead mechanism
    of "ifs" and "therefores" for the living myriad of hidden
    suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into
    mutual sustainment.


Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick,
had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one
whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement
and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation
at large, that just about the time when he came in possession of the
deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother
"read himself" into the quaint little church and preached his first
sermon to the congregation of farmers, laborers, and village artisans.
It was not that Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick Church or to
reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had bought the
excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a retreat which he might
gradually enlarge as to the land and beautify as to the dwelling, until
it should be conducive to the divine glory that he should enter on it
as a residence, partially withdrawing from his present exertions in the
administration of business, and throwing more conspicuously on the side
of Gospel truth the weight of local landed proprietorship, which
Providence might increase by unforeseen occasions of purchase.  A
strong leading in this direction seemed to have been given in the
surprising facility of getting Stone Court, when every one had expected
that Mr. Rigg Featherstone would have clung to it as the Garden of
Eden.  That was what poor old Peter himself had expected; having often,
in imagination, looked up through the sods above him, and, unobstructed
by perspective, seen his frog-faced legatee enjoying the fine old
place to the perpetual surprise and disappointment of other survivors.

But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbors!  We
judge from our own desires, and our neighbors themselves are not always
open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs.  The cool and judicious
Joshua Rigg had not allowed his parent to perceive that Stone Court was
anything less than the chief good in his estimation, and he had
certainly wished to call it his own.  But as Warren Hastings looked at
gold and thought of buying Daylesford, so Joshua Rigg looked at Stone
Court and thought of buying gold.  He had a very distinct and intense
vision of his chief good, the vigorous greed which he had inherited
having taken a special form by dint of circumstance: and his chief good
was to be a moneychanger.  From his earliest employment as an
errand-boy in a seaport, he had looked through the windows of the
moneychangers as other boys look through the windows of the
pastry-cooks; the fascination had wrought itself gradually into a deep
special passion; he meant, when he had property, to do many things, one
of them being to marry a genteel young person; but these were all
accidents and joys that imagination could dispense with.  The one joy
after which his soul thirsted was to have a money-changer's shop on a
much-frequented quay, to have locks all round him of which he held the
keys, and to look sublimely cool as he handled the breeding coins of
all nations, while helpless Cupidity looked at him enviously from the
other side of an iron lattice.  The strength of that passion had been a
power enabling him to master all the knowledge necessary to gratify it.
And when others were thinking that he had settled at Stone Court for
life, Joshua himself was thinking that the moment now was not far off
when he should settle on the North Quay with the best appointments in
safes and locks.

Enough.  We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg's sale of his
land from Mr. Bulstrode's point of view, and he interpreted it as a
cheering dispensation conveying perhaps a sanction to a purpose which
he had for some time entertained without external encouragement; he
interpreted it thus, but not too confidently, offering up his
thanksgiving in guarded phraseology.  His doubts did not arise from the
possible relations of the event to Joshua Rigg's destiny, which
belonged to the unmapped regions not taken under the providential
government, except perhaps in an imperfect colonial way; but they arose
from reflecting that this dispensation too might be a chastisement for
himself, as Mr. Farebrother's induction to the living clearly was.

This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the sake of
deceiving him: it was what he said to himself--it was as genuinely his
mode of explaining events as any theory of yours may be, if you happen
to disagree with him.  For the egoism which enters into our theories
does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is
satisfied, the more robust is our belief.

However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr. Bulstrode,
hardly fifteen months after the death of Peter Featherstone, had become
the proprietor of Stone Court, and what Peter would say "if he were
worthy to know," had become an inexhaustible and consolatory subject of
conversation to his disappointed relatives.  The tables were now turned
on that dear brother departed, and to contemplate the frustration of
his cunning by the superior cunning of things in general was a cud of
delight to Solomon.  Mrs. Waule had a melancholy triumph in the proof
that it did not answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the
genuine; and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats said,
"Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so pleased with the
almshouses after all."

Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the advantage
which her husband's health was likely to get from the purchase of Stone
Court.  Few days passed without his riding thither and looking over
some part of the farm with the bailiff, and the evenings were delicious
in that quiet spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were sending
forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden.  One
evening, while the sun was still above the horizon and burning in
golden lamps among the great walnut boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was pausing
on horseback outside the front gate waiting for Caleb Garth, who had
met him by appointment to give an opinion on a question of stable
drainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard.

Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual frame and more
than usually serene, under the influence of his innocent recreation.
He was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit in
himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain when
the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and
revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse.  Nay, it may be
held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning is but a
measure for the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching proof that we are
peculiar instruments of the divine intention.  The memory has as many
moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama.  At this
moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the sunshine were all one with that of
far-off evenings when he was a very young man and used to go out
preaching beyond Highbury.  And he would willingly have had that
service of exhortation in prospect now.  The texts were there still,
and so was his own facility in expounding them.  His brief reverie was
interrupted by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on horseback,
and was just shaking his bridle before starting, when he exclaimed--

"Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming along the lane?
He's like one of those men one sees about after the races."

Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made no
reply.  The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles, whose
appearance presented no other change than such as was due to a suit of
black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards of the horseman
now, and they could see the flash of recognition in his face as he
whirled his stick upward, looking all the while at Mr. Bulstrode, and
at last exclaiming:--

"By Jove, Nick, it's you!  I couldn't be mistaken, though the
five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both!  How are you,
eh? you didn't expect to see _me_ here.  Come, shake us by the hand."
To say that Mr. Raffles' manner was rather excited would be only one
mode of saying that it was evening.  Caleb Garth could see that there
was a moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode, but it ended
in his putting out his hand coldly to Raffles and saying--

"I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place."

"Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine," said Raffles, adjusting
himself in a swaggering attitude.  "I came to see him here before.  I'm
not so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a
letter--what you may call a providential thing.  It's uncommonly
fortunate I met you, though; for I don't care about seeing my stepson:
he's not affectionate, and his poor mother's gone now.  To tell the
truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your address,
for--look here!"  Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.

Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to linger
on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man whose
acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the banker's
life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch that they
must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity.  But Caleb was
peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were
almost absent from his mind; and one of these was curiosity about
personal affairs.  Especially if there was anything discreditable to be
found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred not to know it; and
if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil doings were
discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit.  He now spurred
his horse, and saying, "I wish you good evening, Mr. Bulstrode; I must
be getting home," set off at a trot.

"You didn't put your full address to this letter," Raffles continued.
"That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be.  'The
Shrubs,'--they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, eh?--have cut
the London concern altogether--perhaps turned country squire--have a
rural mansion to invite me to.  Lord, how many years it is ago!  The
old lady must have been dead a pretty long while--gone to glory without
the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh?  But, by Jove!
you're very pale and pasty, Nick.  Come, if you're going home, I'll
walk by your side."

Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue.
Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its
evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning: sin
seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation
an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter of private
vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the
divine purposes.  And now, as if by some hideous magic, this loud red
figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity--an incorporate
past which had not entered into his imagination of chastisements.  But
Mr. Bulstrode's thought was busy, and he was not a man to act or speak
rashly.

"I was going home," he said, "but I can defer my ride a little.  And
you can, if you please, rest here."

"Thank you," said Raffles, making a grimace.  "I don't care now about
seeing my stepson.  I'd rather go home with you."

"Your stepson, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he, is here no longer.  I
am master here now."

Raffles opened wide eyes, and gave a long whistle of surprise, before
he said, "Well then, I've no objection.  I've had enough walking from
the coach-road. I never was much of a walker, or rider either.  What I
like is a smart vehicle and a spirited cob.  I was always a little
heavy in the saddle.  What a pleasant surprise it must be to you to see
me, old fellow!" he continued, as they turned towards the house.  "You
don't say so; but you never took your luck heartily--you were always
thinking of improving the occasion--you'd such a gift for improving
your luck."

Mr. Raffles seemed greatly to enjoy his own wit, and swung his leg in a
swaggering manner which was rather too much for his companion's
judicious patience.

"If I remember rightly," Mr. Bulstrode observed, with chill anger, "our
acquaintance many years ago had not the sort of intimacy which you are
now assuming, Mr. Raffles.  Any services you desire of me will be the
more readily rendered if you will avoid a tone of familiarity which did
not lie in our former intercourse, and can hardly be warranted by more
than twenty years of separation."

"You don't like being called Nick?  Why, I always called you Nick in my
heart, and though lost to sight, to memory dear.  By Jove! my feelings
have ripened for you like fine old cognac.  I hope you've got some in
the house now.  Josh filled my flask well the last time."

Mr. Bulstrode had not yet fully learned that even the desire for cognac
was not stronger in Raffles than the desire to torment, and that a hint
of annoyance always served him as a fresh cue.  But it was at least
clear that further objection was useless, and Mr. Bulstrode, in giving
orders to the housekeeper for the accommodation of the guest, had a
resolute air of quietude.

There was the comfort of thinking that this housekeeper had been in the
service of Rigg also, and might accept the idea that Mr. Bulstrode
entertained Raffles merely as a friend of her former master.

When there was food and drink spread before his visitor in the
wainscoted parlor, and no witness in the room, Mr. Bulstrode said--

"Your habits and mine are so different, Mr. Raffles, that we can hardly
enjoy each other's society.  The wisest plan for both of us will
therefore be to part as soon as possible.  Since you say that you
wished to meet me, you probably considered that you had some business
to transact with me.  But under the circumstances I will invite you to
remain here for the night, and I will myself ride over here early
to-morrow morning--before breakfast, in fact, when I can receive any
Communication you have to make to me."

"With all my heart," said Raffles; "this is a comfortable place--a
little dull for a continuance; but I can put up with it for a night,
with this good liquor and the prospect of seeing you again in the
morning.  You're a much better host than my stepson was; but Josh owed
me a bit of a grudge for marrying his mother; and between you and me
there was never anything but kindness."

Mr. Bulstrode, hoping that the peculiar mixture of joviality and
sneering in Raffles' manner was a good deal the effect of drink, had
determined to wait till he was quite sober before he spent more words
upon him.  But he rode home with a terribly lucid vision of the
difficulty there would be in arranging any result that could be
permanently counted on with this man.  It was inevitable that he should
wish to get rid of John Raffles, though his reappearance could not be
regarded as lying outside the divine plan.  The spirit of evil might
have sent him to threaten Mr. Bulstrode's subversion as an instrument
of good; but the threat must have been permitted, and was a
chastisement of a new kind.  It was an hour of anguish for him very
different from the hours in which his struggle had been securely
private, and which had ended with a sense that his secret misdeeds were
pardoned and his services accepted.  Those misdeeds even when
committed--had they not been half sanctified by the singleness of his
desire to devote himself and all he possessed to the furtherance of the
divine scheme?  And was he after all to become a mere stone of
stumbling and a rock of offence?  For who would understand the work
within him?  Who would not, when there was the pretext of casting
disgrace upon him, confound his whole life and the truths he had
espoused, in one heap of obloquy?

In his closest meditations the life-long habit of Mr. Bulstrode's mind
clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to superhuman
ends.  But even while we are talking and meditating about the earth's
orbit and the solar system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is
the stable earth and the changing day.  And now within all the
automatic succession of theoretic phrases--distinct and inmost as the
shiver and the ache of oncoming fever when we are discussing abstract
pain, was the forecast of disgrace in the presence of his neighbors and
of his own wife.  For the pain, as well as the public estimate of
disgrace, depends on the amount of previous profession.  To men who
only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's dock is
disgrace.  But Mr. Bulstrode had aimed at being an eminent Christian.

It was not more than half-past seven in the morning when he again
reached Stone Court.  The fine old place never looked more like a
delightful home than at that moment; the great white lilies were in
flower, the nasturtiums, their pretty leaves all silvered with dew,
were running away over the low stone wall; the very noises all around
had a heart of peace within them.  But everything was spoiled for the
owner as he walked on the gravel in front and awaited the descent of
Mr. Raffles, with whom he was condemned to breakfast.

It was not long before they were seated together in the wainscoted
parlor over their tea and toast, which was as much as Raffles cared to
take at that early hour.  The difference between his morning and
evening self was not so great as his companion had imagined that it
might be; the delight in tormenting was perhaps even the stronger
because his spirits were rather less highly pitched.  Certainly his
manners seemed more disagreeable by the morning light.

"As I have little time to spare, Mr. Raffles," said the banker, who
could hardly do more than sip his tea and break his toast without
eating it, "I shall be obliged if you will mention at once the ground
on which you wished to meet with me.  I presume that you have a home
elsewhere and will be glad to return to it."

"Why, if a man has got any heart, doesn't he want to see an old friend,
Nick?--I must call you Nick--we always did call you young Nick when we
knew you meant to marry the old widow.  Some said you had a handsome
family likeness to old Nick, but that was your mother's fault, calling
you Nicholas.  Aren't you glad to see me again?  I expected an invite
to stay with you at some pretty place.  My own establishment is broken
up now my wife's dead.  I've no particular attachment to any spot; I
would as soon settle hereabout as anywhere."

"May I ask why you returned from America?  I considered that the strong
wish you expressed to go there, when an adequate sum was furnished, was
tantamount to an engagement that you would remain there for life."

"Never knew that a wish to go to a place was the same thing as a wish
to stay.  But I did stay a matter of ten years; it didn't suit me to
stay any longer.  And I'm not going again, Nick." Here Mr. Raffles
winked slowly as he looked at Mr. Bulstrode.

"Do you wish to be settled in any business?  What is your calling now?"

"Thank you, my calling is to enjoy myself as much as I can.  I don't
care about working any more.  If I did anything it would be a little
travelling in the tobacco line--or something of that sort, which takes
a man into agreeable company.  But not without an independence to fall
back upon.  That's what I want: I'm not so strong as I was, Nick,
though I've got more color than you.  I want an independence."

"That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to keep at a
distance," said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a little too much eagerness
in his undertone.

"That must be as it suits my convenience," said Raffles coolly.  "I see
no reason why I shouldn't make a few acquaintances hereabout.  I'm not
ashamed of myself as company for anybody.  I dropped my portmanteau at
the turnpike when I got down--change of linen--genuine--honor bright--more
than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit of mourning, straps
and everything, I should do you credit among the nobs here."  Mr.
Raffles had pushed away his chair and looked down at himself,
particularly at his straps.  His chief intention was to annoy
Bulstrode, but he really thought that his appearance now would produce
a good effect, and that he was not only handsome and witty, but clad in
a mourning style which implied solid connections.

"If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles," said Bulstrode,
after a moment's pause, "you will expect to meet my wishes."

"Ah, to be sure," said Raffles, with a mocking cordiality.  "Didn't I
always do it?  Lord, you made a pretty thing out of me, and I got but
little.  I've often thought since, I might have done better by telling
the old woman that I'd found her daughter and her grandchild: it would
have suited my feelings better; I've got a soft place in my heart.  But
you've buried the old lady by this time, I suppose--it's all one to her
now.  And you've got your fortune out of that profitable business which
had such a blessing on it.  You've taken to being a nob, buying land,
being a country bashaw.  Still in the Dissenting line, eh?  Still
godly?  Or taken to the Church as more genteel?"

This time Mr. Raffles' slow wink and slight protrusion of his tongue
was worse than a nightmare, because it held the certitude that it was
not a nightmare, but a waking misery.  Mr. Bulstrode felt a shuddering
nausea, and did not speak, but was considering diligently whether he
should not leave Raffles to do as he would, and simply defy him as a
slanderer.  The man would soon show himself disreputable enough to make
people disbelieve him.  "But not when he tells any ugly-looking truth
about _you_," said discerning consciousness.  And again: it seemed no
wrong to keep Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the
direct falsehood of denying true statements.  It was one thing to look
back on forgiven sins, nay, to explain questionable conformity to lax
customs, and another to enter deliberately on the necessity of
falsehood.

But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by way of using time
to the utmost.

"I've not had such fine luck as you, by Jove!  Things went confoundedly
with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and a man of
gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them.  I married when I came
back--a nice woman in the tobacco trade--very fond of me--but the
trade was restricted, as we say.  She had been settled there a good
many years by a friend; but there was a son too much in the case.  Josh
and I never hit it off.  However, I made the most of the position, and
I've always taken my glass in good company.  It's been all on the
square with me; I'm as open as the day.  You won't take it ill of me
that I didn't look you up before.  I've got a complaint that makes me a
little dilatory.  I thought you were trading and praying away in London
still, and didn't find you there.  But you see I was sent to you,
Nick--perhaps for a blessing to both of us."

Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellect more
superior to religious cant.  And if the cunning which calculates on the
meanest feelings in men could be called intellect, he had his share,
for under the blurting rallying tone with which he spoke to Bulstrode,
there was an evident selection of statements, as if they had been so
many moves at chess.  Meanwhile Bulstrode had determined on his move,
and he said, with gathered resolution--

"You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a
man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage.
Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply you
with a regular annuity--in quarterly payments--so long as you fulfil a
promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood.  It is in your
power to choose.  If you insist on remaining here, even for a short
time, you will get nothing from me.  I shall decline to know you."

"Ha, ha!" said Raffles, with an affected explosion, "that reminds me of
a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable."

"Your allusions are lost on me sir," said Bulstrode, with white heat;
"the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other."

"You can't understand a joke, my good fellow.  I only meant that I
should never decline to know you.  But let us be serious.  Your
quarterly payment won't quite suit me.  I like my freedom."

Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room,
swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation.  At last
he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, "I'll tell you what!  Give us
a couple of hundreds--come, that's modest--and I'll go away--honor
bright!--pick up my portmanteau and go away.  But I shall not give up
my Liberty for a dirty annuity.  I shall come and go where I like.
Perhaps it may suit me to stay away, and correspond with a friend;
perhaps not.  Have you the money with you?"

"No, I have one hundred," said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate
riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future
uncertainties.  "I will forward you the other if you will mention an
address."

"No, I'll wait here till you bring it," said Raffles.  "I'll take a
stroll and have a snack, and you'll be back by that time."

Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the agitations he had gone
through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of
this loud invulnerable man.  At that moment he snatched at a temporary
repose to be won on any terms.  He was rising to do what Raffles
suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a
sudden recollection--

"I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn't tell you;
I'd a tender conscience about that pretty young woman.  I didn't find
her, but I found out her husband's name, and I made a note of it.  But
hang it, I lost my pocketbook.  However, if I heard it, I should know
it again.  I've got my faculties as if I was in my prime, but names
wear out, by Jove!  Sometimes I'm no better than a confounded tax-paper
before the names are filled in.  However, if I hear of her and her
family, you shall know, Nick.  You'd like to do something for her, now
she's your step-daughter."

"Doubtless," said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady look of his
light-gray eyes; "though that might reduce my power of assisting you."

As he walked out of the room, Raffles winked slowly at his back, and
then turned towards the window to watch the banker riding away--virtually
at his command.  His lips first curled with a smile and then opened
with a short triumphant laugh.

"But what the deuce was the name?" he presently said, half aloud,
scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows horizontally.  He had not
really cared or thought about this point of forgetfulness until it
occurred to him in his invention of annoyances for Bulstrode.

"It began with L; it was almost all l's I fancy," he went on, with a
sense that he was getting hold of the slippery name.  But the hold was
too slight, and he soon got tired of this mental chase; for few men
were more impatient of private occupation or more in need of making
themselves continually heard than Mr. Raffles.  He preferred using his
time in pleasant conversation with the bailiff and the housekeeper,
from whom he gathered as much as he wanted to know about Mr.
Bulstrode's position in Middlemarch.

After all, however, there was a dull space of time which needed
relieving with bread and cheese and ale, and when he was seated alone
with these resources in the wainscoted parlor, he suddenly slapped his
knee, and exclaimed, "Ladislaw!"  That action of memory which he had
tried to set going, and had abandoned in despair, had suddenly
completed itself without conscious effort--a common experience,
agreeable as a completed sneeze, even if the name remembered is of no
value.  Raffles immediately took out his pocket-book, and wrote down
the name, not because he expected to use it, but merely for the sake of
not being at a loss if he ever did happen to want it.  He was not going
to tell Bulstrode: there was no actual good in telling, and to a mind
like that of Mr. Raffles there is always probable good in a secret.

He was satisfied with his present success, and by three o'clock that
day he had taken up his portmanteau at the turnpike and mounted the
coach, relieving Mr. Bulstrode's eyes of an ugly black spot on the
landscape at Stone Court, but not relieving him of the dread that the
black spot might reappear and become inseparable even from the vision
of his hearth.





BOOK VI.





THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE.

 Joshua Rigg Featherstone has sold the estate at Stone Court to Mr. Bulstrode. Bulstrode has hired Caleb Garth to manage the estate for him, and the two of them are talking business. Caleb's about to leave when Mr. Raffles comes up the lane looking for his stepson, Rigg. But when he sees Bulstrode, he calls him "Nick" , and acts like they're old friends. Caleb Garth is curious. After all, Bulstrode is a powerful, though not universally popular, person in Middlemarch and no one there knows much about where he came from before he moved there and married Mr. Vincy's sister years and years ago. But Caleb is also discreet, and leaves Bulstrode to deal with Raffles on his own, instead of sticking around to eavesdrop. After Garth leaves, Raffles goes on and on about how long it's been, and asks whether Bulstrode has "given up the London concern," and reflects that "the old lady must have been dead a pretty long while without the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was." Bulstrode doesn't respond, and Eliot doesn't clear up the mystery of how Raffles knows Bulstrode. Bulstrode tells Raffles that he's bought Stone Court, and Joshua Rigg Featherstone has moved away. He agrees to allow Raffles to stay at Stone Court overnight, although he himself will spend the night at the house in town. He tells Raffles that he'll come back the next morning to discuss whatever it is that Raffles wanted to discuss. As he rides back to Middlemarch, Bulstrode worries about what Raffles could possibly want. It can't be good, and it brings up memories of the bad things he'd done in the past . The next morning, Bulstrode goes to meet Raffles at Stone Court. Raffles pretends that he's come to Middlemarch to visit his "old friend," but it's clear that he's there for money. His wife has died, so he has no ties to keep him anywhere, and he says that he's thinking of settling in Middlemarch. That's exactly what Bulstrode doesn't want, so he offers to give him money to stay away. Raffles brings up the "old lady" again, whom Bulstrode had married, and says that he's "found her daughter and her grandchild." Bulstrode doesn't like having his first wife mentioned, and changes the subject. But Raffles won't allow the subject to be changed, and says that the daughter was a pretty girl, named Sarah...something. He can't remember the name of her husband, but it began with an L. Later on, he remembers: Sarah's married name was "Ladislaw." The family tree is complicated here, so we'll take a minute to explain: remember, back in Book 4, Chapter 37, that Will Ladislaw told Dorothea about his family. His mother, he said, had run away from her family, but had never told anyone why. Well, apparently she's the Sarah Ladislaw in question. Her mother had gotten married to Bulstrode either before or after she disappeared, and Raffles knows about it. But he doesn't tell anyone the name; he likes having secrets, because he can use them to make Bulstrode pay him to keep quiet. Raffles agrees to go away for the sum of two hundred pounds .

