The biter was bit: the fox who had said, "This is a trap; I'll lightly
come and lightly go," was caught by the light fantastic toe.
In this emergency he showed high qualities: vast financial ability, great
fortitude, and that sense of commercial honour which Mrs. Dodd justly
called his semi-chivalrous sentiment. He mustered all his private
resources to meet his engagements and maintain his high position. Then
commenced a long and steady struggle, conducted with a Spartan dignity
and self-command, and a countenance as close as wax. Little did any in
Barkington guess the doubts and fears, the hopes and despondencies, which
agitated and tore the heart and brain that schemed, and throbbed, and
glowed, and sickened by turns beneath that steady modulated exterior. And
so for months and months he secretly battled with insolvency; sometimes
it threatened in the distance, sometimes at hand, but never caught him
unawares: he provided for each coming danger, he encountered each
immediate attack. But not unscathed in morals. Just as matters looked
brighter, came a concentration of liabilities he could not meet without
emptying his tills, and so incurring the most frightful danger of all.
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