invalidating, the title; but of this it might be possible, perhaps, to obtain possession. Cashel's papers must be ransacked throughout; it was very unlikely that he had taken an unusual care of it, so that Linton was far from supposing that this would present a serious difficulty. But why had he not thought of this before? Why had he suffered his disappointment to blind him to what was so palpable? “So much for thinking the game won ere it is finished,” exclaimed he; “but who would have thought Linton should make this blunder?” To treat with Tiernay, then, realized every advantage he could think of. It offered the prospect of better terms, an easier negotiation; and it presented one feature of inestimable merit in his eyes,--it afforded the means of gratifying his hatred against Cashel, without the vengeance costing him anything. This thought, for a while, left him incapable of entertaining every other. Cashel reduced to poverty--humiliated to the position of an adventurer who had obtained a property under false pretences--was a picture he could never weary of contemplating. What a glorious consummation of revenge, could he have involved one other in the ruin!--if Laura had been the companion of his fall! But that scheme had failed; a friendship--a perilous one, 't is true--had sprung up where Linton had sowed the seeds of a very different passion; and nothing remained but to involve them both in the disgrace and ruin which a separation and its consequences could inflict. “Even this,” thought be, “will now be no trifling penalty,--the 'millionnaire' Roland Cashel would have conferred an _éclat_ on the fall, that would become ludicrous when associated with the name of a mere adventurer.” If thoughts of these vengeances afforded the most intense pleasure to his vindictive mind, there came, ever and anon, deep regrets at the loss of that greater game for which he had planned and plotted so anxiously. That noble fortune which he had almost held within his grasp; that high station from which he would have known how to derive all its advantages; the political position he had so long ambitioned,--were now all to flit from before his eyes like the forms of a dream, unreal and impossible. So intently had he pursued these various reasonings, that he utterly forgot everything of his late interview with Tom Keane; and when the remembrance did flash upon him, the effect was almost stunning. The crime would now be useless, so far as regarded Linton's own advantage. Mary Leicester could never be his wife; why, then, involve himself, however remotely, in a deed as profitless as it was perilous? No time should be lost about this. He must see Keane immediately, and dissuade him from the attempt. It would be easy to assure him that the whole was a misconception,--a mistake of meaning. It was not necessary to convince, it was enough to avert the act; but this must be done at once.