All 3 Uses of

stringent
in
Middlemarch

At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even her aloof from any close knowledge of what he was doing; but gradually the terrible stringency of human need—the prospect of a too speedy death— And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her husband's past—nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had grown out of that past: the lonely labor, the ambition breathing hardly under the pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding, and the heavier limbs; and now at last the sword visibly trembling above him!†
Chpt 5

I would not believe anything worse of him except under stringent proof.†
Chpt 8 *

stringent = strict

"Then why can't you think it your duty to submit a little to what James wishes?" said Celia, with a sense of stringency in her argument.†
Chpt 8

Definition:

demanding strict attention to detailed rules and procedures

or:

with restricted options -- such as when there is a shortage of money or time