; and it was refreshful to look abroad after his desperate
impulse. Prominent as he stood before the world, he could not think
without a shudder of behaving like a young frenetic of the passion.
Those whose aim is at the leadership of the English people know, that
however truly based the charges of hypocrisy, soundness of moral fibre
runs throughout the country and is the national integrity, which may
condone old sins for present service; but will not have present sins to
flout it. He was in tune with the English character. The passion was in
him nevertheless, and the stronger for a slow growth that confirmed its
union of the mind and heart. Her counsel fortified him, her suggestions
opened springs; her phrases were golden-lettered in his memory; and
more, she had worked an extraordinary change in his views of life and
aptitude for social converse: he acknowledged it with genial candour.
Through her he was encouraged, led, excited to sparkle with the witty,
feel new gifts, or a greater breadth of nature; and thanking her, he
became thirstily susceptible to her dark beauty; he claimed to have
found the key of her, and he prized it. She was not passionless: the
blood flowed warm. Proud, chaste, she was nobly spirited; having an
intellectual refuge from the besiegings of the blood; a rockfortress.
The 'wife no wife' appeared to him, striking the higher elements of
the man, the commonly masculine also.--Would he espouse her, had he
the chance?--to-morrow! this instant! With her to back him, he would be
doubled in manhood, doubled in brain and heart-energy. To call her wife,
spring from her and return, a man might accept his fate to fight Trojan
or Greek, sure of his mark on the enemy.

But if, after all, this imputed Helen of a decayed Paris passed,
submissive to the legitimate solicitor, back to her husband?

The thought shot Dacier on his legs for a look at the blank behind him.
He vowed she had promised it should not be. Could it ever be, after
the ruin the meanly suspicious fellow had brought upon her?--Diana
voluntarily reunited to the treacherous cur?

He sat, resolving sombrely that if the debate arose he would try what
force he had to save her from such an ignominy, and dedicate his life to
her, let the world wag its tongue. So the knot would be cut.

Men unaccustomed to a knot in their system find the prospect of cutting
it an extreme relief, even when they know that the cut has an edge to
wound mortally as well