she entered the church, she saw him as she had seen him the last time she was there, alone in the clergyman’s pew; but when she entered his figure was gone.

In the weekdays when she went to see the ladies at the Rectory, she listened in vain for some word that they might let fall about Will; but it seemed to her that Mrs. Farebrother talked of everyone else in the neighborhood and out of it.

“Probably some of Mr. Farebrother’s Middlemarch hearers may follow him to Lowick sometimes. Do you not think so?” said Dorothea, rather despising herself for having a secret motive in asking the question.