When Conscience Costs Everything — Middlemarch

At the Bank Caleb Garth asks to speak with Bulstrode and, after slow preamble, says he has come from Stone Court where Raffles lies very ill and needs a doctor. He admits he carried Raffles in his gig when he found him walking beyond the toll-house, and urges the banker to send help at once without waiting for propriety.

Bulstrode sends for Lydgate and rides to Stone Court hoping Raffles spoke only to Garth. When Caleb says he must put all Bulstrode's business into other hands because he believes Raffles's story, he refuses to repeat it, pities without judging, and leaves the past buried as far as his will goes.

Bulstrode, praying hypothetically for Raffles's death, watches the sick man babble about robbery and hunters while Lydgate treats delirium tremens. The gentlest voice has delivered the hardest line: Caleb will not profit from a man whose past he now believes, even without spreading the tale.

Lydgate rides home to find an execution in his house and Rosamond pale on the bed. He begs forgiveness; she plans to return to her parents while he says there is no hurry, and their tenderness keeps breaking into bitter irony as two households crack at once: Stone Court's fever and the Vincys' seized furniture.