Middlemarch Chapter 42

In which the weary scholar Mr. Casaubon confronts the sombre prospect of his own mortality, grappling with the jealous suspicions and silent estrangements that have grown between him and his devoted wife, Dorothea. Amid the quiet autumnal splendour of Lowick Manor, their mutual anguish and restrained affection are laid bare in tender, painful moments of solitary thought and tentative reconciliation.