CHAPTER LIII
FAIR FIGHTING
So the duel began. The moral battle that a man wages
with his own temper, his own passions, words, actions, his
very thoughts, and a few days of the uncongenial struggle
seemed to have added years to Sir George's life. Of all the
trials that could have been imposed on one of his nature,
this was, perhaps, the severest, to live day by day, and
hour by hour, on terms of covert enmity with the woman
best loved—the friend most frankly trusted in the world.
Two of the chief props that uphold the social fabric seemed
cut away from under him. Outward sorrows, injuries,
vexations can be borne cheerfully enough while domestic
happiness remains, and the heart is at peace within. They
do but beat outside, like the blast of a storm on a house
well warmed and watertight. Neither can the utmost
perfidy of woman utterly demoralise him who owns some
staunch friend to trust, on whose vigorous nature he can
lean, in whose manly counsel he can take comfort, till the
sharp anguish has passed away. But when love and friendship
fail both at once, there is great danger of a moral
recklessness which affirms, and would fain believe, that no
truth is left in the world. This is the worst struggle of all.
Conduct and character flounder in it hopelessly, because it
affords no foothold whence to make an upward spring, so
that they are apt to sink and disappear without even a
struggle for extrication.
Sir George had indeed a purpose to preserve him from complete demoralisation, but that purpose was in itself antagonistic to every impulse and instinct of his nature. It
