Finding Purpose in Opposition — Middlemarch

At the New Hospital Dorothea learns from Lydgate that Casaubon's body shows no new change beyond mental anxiety to know the truth about his illness. Lydgate seizes the moment to describe Bulstrode's hospital, the feud of other medical men, and opposition rooted in unpopularity and jealousy of a newcomer given the medical direction. Dorothea calls the resistance petty and agrees reform must be fought.

Dorothea brightens as charity returns to her. Everything of that sort has slipped away since marriage; in Middlemarch there must be much to do. She offers two hundred a year at once, wishes she could wake with Lydgate's useful knowledge, and hears melancholy in her voice before she cheers herself and hurries home. Lydgate remembers her pre-marriage questions about poor housing at Tipton.

That evening she tells Casaubon of the subscription and her talk with Lydgate. He acquiesces when she resists his mild note that the sum may be disproportionate; money does not grip him except through other passions. He does not question her further, yet feels sure she wished to learn what passed between him and Lydgate about his health. She knows that I know, the inward voice says; tacit knowledge thrusts confidence further off. He distrusts her affection, and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?