the expression
of care in certain wrinkles round his mouth, and in the extra blackness
of his whiskers, where gray hairs had dared to show themselves; but to
the world at large these signs were inappreciable. To them he was the
same even-tempered, easy-mannered man they ever saw him. Nor was this
accomplished without an effort; for, however Linton saw the hour of his
vengeance draw nigh, he also perceived that all his personal plans of
fortune and aggrandizement had utterly failed. The hopes he had so often
cherished were all fled. His title to the cottage, his prospect of a
seat in Parliament, the very sums he had won at play, and which to
a large amount remained in Cashel's hands, he now perceived were all
forfeited to revenge. The price was, indeed, a heavy one! and already he
began to feel it so. Many of his creditors had abstained from pressing
him so long as his intimacy with Cashel gave promise of future solvency.
That illusion was now dispelled, and each post brought him dunning
epistles, and threatening notices of various kinds. Exposures menaced
him from men whose vindictiveness he was well aware of; but far more
perilous than all these were his relations with Tom Keane, who continued
to address letter after letter to him, craving advice and pecuniary
assistance, in a tone where menace was even more palpable than entreaty.
To leave these unreplied to might have been dangerous in the extreme; to
answer them even more perilous. No other course was, then, open than to
return to Tubbermore, and endeavor, in secret, to confer with this man
face to face. There was not any time to lose. Cashel's trial was to take
place at the ensuing assizes, which now were close at hand. Keane was to
figure there as an important witness. It was absolutely necessary to see
him, and caution him as to the nature of the evidence he should give,
nor suffer him in the exuberance of his zeal to prove "too much."

Under pretence, therefore, of a hurried trip to London, he left his
house one evening, and went on board the packet at Kingstown, dismissing
his carriage as if about to depart; then, suddenly affecting to discover
that his luggage had been carried away by mistake, he landed, and set
out with post-horses across country towards the western road. Before
midnight he was safe in the mail, on his way to Limerick; and by
daybreak on the following morning he was standing in the wood of
Tubbermore, and gazing with a thoughtful head upon th