hould always be ready to offer for the cause of truth."

"Don't you perceive, Cashel, that all you are saying only proves what
I have been asserting,--that, while you are actually ignorant of your
danger, the peril is but the greater? I repeat it to you, however intact
_your_ heart may be, _hers_ is in your keeping. I know this; nay, I say
it advisedly--don't shake your head and look so confident--I repeat it,
I know this to be the case."

"You _know_ it?" said Cashel, as though Linton's words had startled his
convictions.

"I _know_ it, and I 'll prove it, but upon one condition--your word of
honor as to secrecy." Cashel nodded, and Linton went on. "Some short
time back, some one, under the shelter of the anonymous, wrote her
a letter, stating that they had long watched her intimacy with
you--grieving over it, and regretting that she should have yielded any
portion of her affection to one whose whole life had been a series of
deceptions; that your perjuries in Love's Court were undeniable, and
that you were actually married--legally and regularly married--to a
young Spanish girl."

"Was this told her?" said Cashel, gasping for breath.

"Yes, the very name was given--Maritana, if I mistake not. Is there such
a name?"

Cashel bent his head slightly in assent.

"How you had deserted this poor girl after having won her affections--"

"This is false, sir; every word of it false!" said Cashel, purple with
passion; "nor will I permit any man to drag her name before this
world of slanderers in connection with such a tale. Great Heaven! what
hypocrisy it is to have a horror for the assassin and the cut-throat,
and yet give shelter, in your society, to those who stab character and
poison reputation! I tell you, sir, that among those buccaneers you have
so often sneered at, you'd not meet one base enough for this."

"I think you are too severe upon this kind of transgression, Cashel,"
said Linton, calmly. "It is as often prompted by mere idleness as
malice. The great mass of people in this life have nothing to do, and
they go wrong just for occupation. There may have been--there generally
is--a little grain of truth amid all the chaff of fiction; there may,
therefore, be a young lady whose name was--"

"I forbid you to speak it. I knew her, and, girl as she was, she was not
one to suffer insult in her presence, nor shall it be offered to her in
her absence."

"My dear fellow, your generous warmth should not be unjust