As for Cashel, he sauntered on into the wood, his mind wandering on themes separated by nearly half the world from where his steps were straying.
CHAPTER XXXIII. ROLAND'S INTRODUCTION TO MR. CORRIGAN
And while the scene around them smiled,
With pleasant talk the way beguiled.
Haile: Rambles.
As Roland Cashel strolled along alone, he could not divest himself of a certain feeling of disappointment, that, up to the present, at least, all his wealth had so little contributed to realize those illusions he had so often fancied. The plots, the wiles and cunning schemes by which he had been surrounded, were gradually revealing themselves to his senses, and he was rapidly nearing the fatal “bourne” which separates credulity from distrust.
If we have passed over the events which succeeded the loss of the yacht with some appearance of scant ceremony to our reader, it is because, though in themselves not totally devoid of interest, they formed a species of episode which only in one respect bore reference to the current of our story. It is not necessary, no more than it would be gratifying, to us to inquire with what precise intentions Lady Kilgoff had sought to distinguish Roland by marks of preference. Enough, if we say that he was neither puppy enough to ascribe the feeling to anything but a caprice, nor was he sufficiently hackneyed in the world's ways to suspect it could mean more.
That he was flattered by the notice, and fascinated by the charms of a very lovely and agreeable woman, whose dependence upon him each day increasing drew closer the ties of intimacy, is neither strange nor uncommon, no more than that she, shrewdly remarking the bounds of respectful deference by which he ever governed his acquaintance, should use greater freedoms and less restricted familiarity with him, than had he been one of those fashionable young men about town with whom the repute of a conquest would be a triumph.
It is very difficult to say on what terms they lived in each other's society. It were easier, perhaps, to describe it by negatives, and say that assuredly if it were not love, the feeling between them was just as little that which subsists between brother and sister. There was an almost unbounded confidence—an unlimited trust—much asking of advice, and, in fact, as many of my readers will say, fully as much peril as need be.
From her, Cashel first learned to see the stratagems and schemes by which his daily life was beset. Too proud to bestow more than a mere passing allusion to the Kennyfecks, she directed the whole force of her attack upon that far more dangerous group in whose society Roland had lately lived. For a time she abstained altogether from even a chance reference to Linton; but at length, as their intimacy ripened, she avowed her fear of him in all its fulness. When men will build up the edifice of distrust, it is wonderful with what ingenuity they will gather all the scattered materials of doubt, with what skill arrange and combine them! A hundred little circumstances of a suspicious nature now rushed to Roland's memory, and his own conscience corroborated the history she drew of the possible mode by which Linton acquired an influence over him.
That Linton had been the “evil genius” of many, Cashel had often heard before, but always from the lips of men; and it is astonishing, whether the source be pride, or something less stubborn, but the warning which we reject so cavalierly from our fellows, comes with a wondrous force of conviction from the gentler sex.