"My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, who has by this time got his hands in his pockets and is going on in his business consideration of the matter like a machine. "My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine."
"I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky.
"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock."

"My experience teaches me," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, going on in his business consideration of the matter like a machine, "that most people would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must ask you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine."
"I am to drag my present life on, at your pleasure, day by day?" she asks, still looking at the distant sky.
"Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock."
