Mr Tulliver was still predominating in his own imagination as he approached St Ogg's, through which he had to pass on his way homeward.But what was it that suggested to him as he saw the Laceham coach entering the town, to follow it to the coach office, and get the clerk there to write a letter requiring Maggie to come home the very next day? Mr Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitement for him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given to the coachman to deliver at Miss Firniss's school in the morning.There was a craving which he would not account for to himself, to have Maggie near him - without delay - she must come back by the coach to-morrow.
To Mrs Tulliver when he got home, he would admit no difficulties, and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was lost, by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about.He said nothing to her that night about the bill of sale, and the application to Mrs Pullet, for he had kept her in ignorance of the nature of that transaction and had explained the necessity for taking an inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his Will.The possession of a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect, is, like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and among the rest with the occasional necessity for using a little deception.
The next day Mr Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon, on his way to Mr Gore's office at St Ogg's.Gore was to have seen Furley in the morning, and to have sounded him in relation to Mr Tulliver's affairs.
But he had not gone halfway when he met a clerk from Mr Gore's office, who was bringing a letter to Mr Tulliver.Mr Gore had been prevented by a sudden call of business from waiting at his office to see Mr Tulliver according to appointment, but would be at his office at eleven to-morrow morning, and meanwhile had sent some important information by letter.
`O!' said Mr Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it.`Then tell Gore I'll see him tomorrow at eleven.' And he turned his horse.
The clerk, struck with Mr Tulliver's glistening excited glance, looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away.The reading of a letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr Tulliver: he took in the sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written or even printed characters;so he had put the letter in his pocket, thinking he would open it in his armchair at home.But by and by it occurred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep it out of her sight altogether.He stopped his horse, took out the letter and read it.It was only a short letter: the substance was, that Mr Gore had ascertained on secret but sure authority that Furley had been lately much straitened for money, and had parted with his securities, among the rest, the mortgage on Mr Tulliver's property, which he had transferred to - Wakem.
In half an hour after this, Mr Tulliver's own waggoner found him lying by the roadside insensible, with an open letter neat him, and his grey horse snuffing uneasily about him.
When Maggie reached home that evening in obedience to her father's call, he was no longer insensible.About an hour before, he had become conscious, and after vague, vacant looks around him, had muttered something about `a letter,' which he presently repeated impatiently.At the instance of Mr Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter was brought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to be allayed.The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on the letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help.But presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come and swept the other away: he turned his eyes from the letter to the door and after looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too dim for, he said, `The little wench.'