Through the Neapolitan Embassy, orders were transmitted to Naples to inquire into the case of Enrique, whose innocence the testimony of Keane went far to establish. The result was, as Cashel ardently hoped, his complete vindication, and a telegraphic despatch brought tidings that he was already liberated, and on his way to Paris. While both Roland and Rica waited impatiently for the arrival of one whose assistance in their search would be so valuable, the most perfect good understanding grew up between them, and Cashel began to perceive how, beneath the vices which a life of reckless debauchery had created, there lay--inactive and unused for many a day--kindly feelings and warm affections for which he had never given him credit. As this confidence grew stronger, Rica became more frank and open in all his intercourse, and at last revealed to Cashel the whole story of his life,--a strange, eventful history, whose vicissitudes were the changing fortunes of a gambler's existence. For such was he,--without a passion, a pursuit of any kind but play, he had passed his life in that one baneful vice. For it he had toiled and labored: to indulge that passion he had engaged in deadly duels, and perilled his life by acts of forgery. His marriage with Corrigan's daughter was brought about solely to procure the means of play; nor was there an energy of his mind or an impulse of his nature had any other direction. Linton's skill as a gambler, the unceasing resources he seemed to possess, the stratagems and devices he could deploy, created for him, in Rica's mind, a species of admiration that soon degenerated into a blind submission to all his dictates. Such an ally as this, so deeply versed in all the weak points of his fellow-men,--so thoroughly master of every impulse that moves, of every hope and fear that sways the gambler's nature,--had been the cherished desire of his heart for many a year, and now fortune bad at last given him such an associate. Their sudden success seemed to warrant the justice of the hope. Everything prospered with them since their new league. If he did not gain an equal ascendancy over the daughter's mind as he had acquired over the father's, still the ambitious future he often pictured before her, dazzled and delighted her, and thus, erelong, he contrived to obtain a degree of power, although of different kinds, over both. From such an associate as Linton concealment was impossible; and Rica soon saw himself completely at the mercy of a man who had sifted every motive of his heart, and weighed every action of his life, and at last became his pitiless, tyrannical master.