er to be.

Fears for individual safety were merged in hopes of seeing others
assailed, and it was in something like a flutter of expectancy that
the party assembled in the drawing-room before dinner. Great was their
surprise to find that Mr. Linton did not make his appearance. The dinner
was announced, but he never came, and his place vacant at the foot of
the table was the continual suggester of every possible reason for
his absence. If Lady Kilgoff could not divest herself of a certain
terror,--vague and meaningless, it is true,--the dread she felt
proceeded from knowing him to be one whose every act had some deep
purpose; while others were then canvassing his absence in easy freedom,
she took the first opportunity of asking Cashel whether he were in the
secret, or if it were really true that Linton had not communicated, even
with him, about his departure.

"I am no better informed than my friends here," said Roland; "and, to
say truth, I have given little thought about the matter. We have not,
as you are aware, of late seen so much of each other as we used once; he
has himself rather drawn off me, and I have left the interval between us
to widen, without much regret."

"Remember, however, what I told you: he can be a terrible enemy."

Cashel smiled calmly as he said, "I have consorted with men whose
vengeance never took longer to acquit than the time occupied in drawing
a knife from the sleeve or a pistol from the girdle. I care very little
for him whose weapon is mere subtlety."

"It is this over-confidence makes me fear for you," said she, anxiously;
"for, I say again, you do not know him."

"I wish I never had," said Cashel, with an earnestness of voice and
accent. "He has involved me in a hundred pursuits for which I feel
neither taste nor enjoyment. To him I owe it that pleasure is always
associated in my mind with mere debauch; and the only generosity he has
taught me has been the spendthrift waste of the gaming-table."

"Could you not find out something of him,--when he went, and in what
direction?" said she, anxiously. "I cannot tell you why, but my heart
misgives me about his departure."

More in compliance with her scruples than that he deemed the matter
worth a thought, Cashel left the room to make inquiries from the
servants; but all he could learn was, that Mr. Linton arose before
daybreak and left the house on foot, his own servant not knowing in what
direction, nor having heard anything of his