them. It was like the paroxysm
of some painful disease, that came at moments when health and calm of
spirit were most wanted. To feel this, to recognize it thoroughly, and
to resolve to overcome it, were, with Linton, the work of a moment. "His
hour is come," said he, at length; "the company at La Morgue to-morrow
shall be graced by a guest of my inviting."

Although to a mind prolific in schemes of villany the manner of the
crime could offer no difficulty, strange enough, his nature revolted
against being himself the agent of the guilt It was not fear, for he was
a man of nerve and courage, and was, besides, certain to be better armed
than his adversary. It was not pity, nor any feeling that bordered on
pity, deterred him; it was some instinctive shrinking from an act of
ruffianism; it was the blood of a man of birth that curdled at the
thought of that which his mind associated with criminals of the lowest
class,--the conventional feeling of Honor surpassing all the dictates of
common Humanity.

Nothing short of the pressing emergency of the hour could have overcome
these scruples, but Keane's insolence was now in itself enough to
compromise him, and Linton saw that but one remedy remained, and that
it could not be deferred. Constant habits of intercourse with men of a
dangerous class in the Faubourgs and the Cite gave the excuse for the
boating excursion at night. The skiff was hired by Keane himself, who
took up Linton at a point remote from where he started, and thus no clew
could be traced to the person who accompanied him. The remainder is in
the reader's memory, and now we pursue our story.

The surgeon who examined Keane's wound not only pronounced it inevitably
fatal, but that the result must rapidly ensue. No time was, therefore,
to be lost in obtaining the fullest revelations of the dying man, and
also in taking the promptest measures to secure the guilty party.

The authorities of the British Embassy lent a willing aid to Cashel in
this matter, and an express was at once despatched to London for the
assistance of a police force, with the necessary warrant for Linton's
arrest Meanwhile Keane was watched with the narrowest vigilance; and so
secretly was everything done, that his very existence was unknown beyond
the precincts of the room he inhabited.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE "BANK OF ROUGE ET NOIR"

Vice has its own ambitions.

Morton.

It was already nigh daybreak. The "bank" had long si