When Friends Won't Intervene — Middlemarch

After the Saturday quarrel Will sits up half the night asking whether harnessing himself to Brooke makes him a fool when he is conscious of being something better. For no definite end he keeps dreamy visions, but the vulgar hope that Dorothea might widow and accept him has no tempting power; he loves her as she is and will stay within reach because she once said she would like it.

Sunday morning Objection warns that Lowick Church defies Casaubon's prohibition; Inclination says a spring church visit is monstrous to forbid. Having silenced Objection by force of unreason, Will walks through budding Halsell Wood chanting his frugal-cheer verses, happy until vexing Casaubon amuses him. He enters the curate's pew alone; the Tuckers have left Lowick and a new clergyman reads the desk.

Dorothea appears in her Vatican cloak, pale, grave bow; Casaubon seats himself facing her and Will cannot look toward her, only endure the service in paralysis worse than he foresaw. At the exit he meets Casaubon's downcast eyes on the pew-door button; Dorothea bows again with agitation like repressed tears, then follows her husband into the shrubbery without turning.

It is impossible to follow them. Will walks back at midday on the hopeful road, lights changed without and within, and calls himself stupid for worshipping the sight of a woman when the morning service has never been so immeasurably long.