“Ah! if I meant to be nothing but a lawyer!” Edward stopped the flow of this current in Dahlia’s favour.  His passion for her was silent.  Was it dead?  It was certainly silent.  Since Robert had come down to play his wild game of persecution at Fairly, the simple idea of Dahlia had been Edward’s fever.  He detested brute force, with a finely-witted man’s full loathing; and Dahlia’s obnoxious champion had grown to be associated in his mind with Dahlia.  He swept them both from his recollection abhorrently, for in his recollection he could not divorce them.  He pretended to suppose that Dahlia, whose only reproach to him was her suffering, participated in the scheme to worry him.  He could even forget her beauty—­forget all, save the unholy fetters binding him.  She seemed to imprison him in bare walls.  He meditated on her character.  She had no strength.  She was timid, comfort-loving, fond of luxury, credulous, preposterously conventional; that is, desirous more than the ordinary run of women of being hedged about and guarded by ceremonies—­“mere ceremonies,” said Edward, forgetting the notion he entertained of women not so protected.  But it may be, that in playing the part of fool and coward, we cease to be mindful of the absolute necessity for sheltering the weak from that monstrous allied army, the cowards and the fools.  He admitted even to himself that he had deceived her, at the same time denouncing her unheard-of capacity of belief, which had placed him in a miserable hobble, and that was the truth.

Now, men confessing themselves in a miserable hobble, and knowing they are guilty of the state of things lamented by them, intend to drown that part of their nature which disturbs them by its outcry.  The submission to a tangle that could be cut through instantaneously by any exertion of a noble will, convicts them.  They had better not confide, even to their secret hearts, that they are afflicted by their conscience and the generosity of their sentiments, for it will be only to say that these high qualities are on the failing side.  Their inclination, under the circumstances, is generally base, and no less a counsellor than uncorrupted common sense, when they are in such a hobble, will sometimes advise them to be base.  But, in admitting the plea which common sense puts forward on their behalf, we may fairly ask them to be masculine in their baseness.  Or, in other words, since they must be selfish, let them be so without the poltroonery of selfishness.  Edward’s wish was to be perfectly just, as far as he could be now—­just to himself as well; for how was he to prove of worth and aid to any one depending on him, if he stood crippled?  Just, also, to his family; to his possible posterity; and just to Dahlia.  His task was to reconcile the variety of justness due upon all sides.  The struggle, we will assume, was severe, for he thought so; he thought of going to Dahlia and speaking the word of separation; of going to her family and stating his offence, without personal exculpation; thus masculine in baseness, he was in idea; but poltroonery triumphed, the picture of himself facing his sin and its victims dismayed him, and his struggle ended in his considering as to the fit employment of one thousand pounds in his possession, the remainder of a small legacy, hitherto much cherished.