'You'd a deal better go back, sir,' said Dolly, with respectful
compassion. 'You've no call to catch cold; and I'd ask you if you'd be
so good as tell my husband to come, on your way back- he's at the
Rainbow, I doubt- if you found him anyway sober enough to be o' use.
Or else, there's Mrs Snell 'ud happen send the boy up to fetch and
carry, for there may be things wanted from the doctor's.'
'No, I'll stay, now I'm once out- I'll stay outside here,' said
Godfrey, when they came opposite Marner's cottage. 'You can come and
tell me if I can do anything.'
'Well, sir, you're very good: you've a tender heart,' said Dolly,
going to the door.
Godfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel a twinge of
self-reproach at his undeserved praise. He walked up and down,
unconscious that he was plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of
everything but trembling suspense about what was going on in the
cottage, and the effect of each alternative on his future lot. No, not
quite unconscious of everything else. Deeper down, and
half-smothered by passionate desire and dread, there was the sense
that he ought not to be waiting on these alternatives; that he ought
to accept the consequences of his deeds, own the miserable wife, and
fulfil the claims of the helpless child. But he had not moral
courage enough to contemplate that active renunciation of Nancy as
possible for him; he had only conscience and heart enough to make
him for ever uneasy under the weakness that forbade the
renunciation.
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