“There is no occasion for all this alarm,” he observed, rather contemptuously. “The fox can lie at earth till the worst danger of the chase is over. Perhaps his safest refuge is the very hen-roost he has skulked in to rob! Cheer up, Florian,” he added, in a kinder tone. “You don’t suppose I would give up a comrade so long as the old house can cover him! I must only make you a prisoner, that is all, with my lady, here, for your gaoler. Keep close for a week or two, and the fiercest of the storm will have blown over. It will be time enough then to smuggle you back to St. Omer, or wherever you have to furnish your report. Don’t be afraid, man. Why, you used to be made of sterner stuff than this!”
Florian could not answer. A host of conflicting feelings filled his breast to suffocation, but at that moment how cheerfully, how gladly, would he have laid down his life for the husband of the woman he so madly loved! Covering his face in his hands he sobbed aloud.
Cerise raised her eyes with a look of enthusiastic approval; but they sank terrified and disheartened by the hard, inscrutable expression of Sir George’s countenance. Her gratitude, he thought, was only for the preservation of Florian. They might congratulate each other, when his back was turned, on the strange infatuation that befriended them, and perhaps laugh at his blind stupidity; but he would fight fair. Yes, however hard it seemed, he was a gentleman, and he would fight fair!
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 water-tight. 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 did violence to his better feelings, his education, his principles, his very prejudices and habits, but he pursued it consistently nevertheless, whilst it poisoned every hour of his life. He went about his daily avocations as usual. He never thought of discontinuing those athletic exercises and field sports which were elevated into an actual business by men of his station at that period, but except for a few thrilling moments at long intervals, the zest seemed to be gone from them all.
He flung his hawks aloft on the free open moor, and cursed them bitterly when they failed to strike. He cheered his hounds in the deep wild dales through which they tracked their game so busily, and hurried Emerald or Grey Plover along at the utmost speed those generous animals could compass, but was with a grim sullen determination to succeed, rather than with the hearty jovial enthusiasm that naturally accompanies the chase. Hawks, hounds, and horses were neither cordials nor stimulants now. Only anodynes, and scarcely efficacious as such for more than a few minutes at a time.
It had been settled that for a short period, depending on the alarm felt by the country at the proposed rising, and consequent strictness of search for suspected characters, Florian should remain domiciled as before at Hamilton Hill. It was only stipulated that he should not show himself abroad by daylight, nor hold open communication with such of his confederates as might be prowling about the “Hamilton Arms.” With Sir Marmaduke’s good-will, and the general laxity of justice prevailing in the district, he seemed to incur far less peril by hiding in his present quarters than by travelling southward even in disguise on his way to the coast.
There were plenty more of his cloth, little distinguished by the authorities indeed, from non-juring clergymen of the Church of England, who remained quietly unnoticed, on sufferance as it were, in the northern counties. Even if watched, Florian might pass for one of these, so his daily life went on much as before Sir Marmaduke’s visit. He did not write perhaps so many letters, for his correspondence with the continent had been discontinued, but this increase of leisure only gave him more time for Lady Hamilton’s society, and as he could not accompany her husband to the moor, for fear of being seen, he now spent every day till dinner-time under the same roof with Cerise.