ctised implies fear;--otherwise, why, in all the
openness of our familiar intercourse, never have mentioned Enrique's
name; still more, never once alluded to this Maritana? It is clear
enough with what shame he looks back on the past. Let mine be the task
to increase that feeling, and build up the fear of the world's ridicule,
till he shall be the slave of every whisper that syllables his name! The
higher his path in society, the greater the depth to which disclosures
may consign him; and what disclosures so certainly ruinous as to connect
him with the lawless marauders of the Spanish main,--the slaver and
the pirate? His dear friend, a felon, taken in open fight by a British
cruiser! Maritana, too, may serve us; her name as mistress--or, if need
be, as wife--will effectually oppose any matrimonial speculations here.
So far this letter has been a rare piece of fortune!"

For some moments he walked the room with excited and animated looks, the
alternating shades of pleasure and its opposite flitting rapidly across
his strong features. At last he broke out in words: "Ay, Cashel, I am as
suddenly enriched as yourself,--but with a different heritage. Yours was
Gold; mine, Revenge! And there are many to whom I could pay the old debt
home. There's Forster, with his story of Ascot, and his black-ball at
Graham's!--a double debt, with years of heavy interest upon it; there's
Howard, too, that closed his book at Tattersall's, after tearing out the
leaf that had my name! Frobisher himself daring his petty insolence at
every turn!--all these cry for acquittance, and shall have it There are
few men of my own standing, that with moneyed means at my command, I
could not ruin! and, ungallant as the boast may be, some fair ladies,
too! How I have longed for the day, how I have schemed and plotted for
it! and now it comes almost unlooked for.

"Another month or two of this wasteful extravagance, and Cashel will be
deeply, seriously embarrassed. Kennyfeck will suggest retrenchment and
economy; that shall be met with an insidious doubt of the good man's
honesty. And how easy to impeach it! The schemes of his wife and
daughter will aid the accusation. Roland shall, meanwhile, learn the
discomfort of being 'hard up.' The importunity--nay, the insolence--of
duns shall assail him at every post and every hour. From this there is
but one bold, short step,--and take it he must,--make me his agent. That
done, all the rest is easy. Embarrassment a