And here Dorothea’s pity turned from her own future to her husband’s past⁠—nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had grown out of that past: the lonely labor, the ambition breathing hardly under the pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding, and the heavier limbs; and now at last the sword visibly trembling above him! And had she not wished to marry him that she might help him in his life’s labor?⁠—But she had thought the work was to be something greater, which she could serve in devoutly for its own sake. Was it right, even to soothe his grief⁠—would it be possible, even if she promised⁠—to work as in a treadmill fruitlessly?

And yet, could she deny him? Could she say, “I refuse to content this pining hunger?” It would be refusing to do for him dead, what she was almost sure to do for him living. If he lived as Lydgate had said he might, for fifteen years or more, her life would certainly be spent in helping him and obeying him.