Page:Eliot - Middlemarch, vol. IV, 1872.djvu/283

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BOOK VIII.—SUNSET AND SUNRISE.
273

as if the cruelty of his outburst to Rosamond had made an obligation for him, and he dreaded the obligation: he dreaded Lydgate's unsuspecting goodwill: he dreaded his own distaste for his spoiled life, which would leave him in motiveless levity.