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 as pacify.

The wound was not heavy payment for the rapture of having so incomparable a woman his own.

He reflected wonderingly on the husband, as he had previously done, and came again to the conclusion that it was a poor creature, abjectly jealous of a wife, he could neither master, nor equal, nor attract.

And thinking of jealousy, Dacier felt none; none of individuals, only of facts: her marriage, her bondage.