wards the lake.

"Is he ill?" said Cashel,--"is Mr. Corrigan taken ill?" But although
the question was asked eagerly, Tiernay was too deeply sunk in his own
thoughts to hear it; while he continued to mutter hurriedly to himself.

"What _is_ the matter?" said Roland at last, losing patience at a
preoccupation that could not be broken in upon. "Is Mr. Corrigan ill?"

"He is ruined!" said Tiernay, dropping Cashel's arm, and letting fall
his own as he spoke, with a gesture of despair.

"What do you mean? How?"

"Ruined! utterly ruined!" re-echoed Tiernay; and there was that in
his accent and the emotion of his manner that forbade any further
questioning.

"It is not at a moment like this," said the doctor, "that I can tell you
a long tale, where treachery and falsehood on one side, and generosity
and manliness on the other, played the game as ever it has been, and
ever will be played, between such antagonists;--enough, if I say my poor
friend became responsible for the debts of a man who, but for his aid,
would have had a felon's fate. This fellow, who possesses one terrible
means of vengeance, threatens now to use it, if a demand be not complied
with, which Corrigan may leave himself a beggar and yet not satisfy. The
threat has been held over him for years, and for years he has struggled
on, parting, one by one, with every little requirement of his station,
and submitting with noble resignation to any and every thing to stave
off the evil day; but it has come at last."

"And what is the sum demanded?" said Cashel, hastily.

"I cannot tell. There are various bills; some have been renewed again
and again, others are yet current. It is a tangled web, and, in our
hopelessness, we never sought to unravel it!"

"But the danger is imminent?"

"So imminent that my friend will be arrested to-morrow if bail be not
forthcoming. I have not told him this; I dare not tell him so; but I
have made up a story to induce him to leave this to-night."

"Where for?" cried Roland, anxiously.

"God knows! I lose memory as well as judgment in moments like this. I
believe I advised Limerick, and thence by ship to some port in England,
from which they could reach the Continent."

"But all this will be unnecessary if I offer myself as security," said
Roland.

"For a sum of which you know nothing!" muttered Tiernay, sorrowfully.

"No matter; it cannot be, in all likelihood, more than I can meet."

"And for one who can never repay!"