“That you could pilot the course through all these difficulties, no one knows better than yourself to be impossible. There is but one living able to do so, and I am that one.”
Cashel started back, and Linton went on,—
“There is no question of friendship between us here. It is a matter of pure interest and mutual convenience that binds us. Agree to my terms, and you are still the owner of the estate; reject them, and you are as poor as poverty and exposure can make you.”
“Scoundrel!” said Cashel. It was all that he could utter; the fulness of his passion had nearly choked him, as, taking a heavy riding-glove from the table, he struck Linton with it across the face. “If there be any manhood in such a wretch, let this provoke it!”
Linton's hand grasped the weapon he carried within his coat, but with a quick, short stroke, Cashel struck down his arm, and it fell powerless to his side.
“You shall pay dearly for this—dearly, by heaven!” cried Linton, as he retired towards the door.
“Go, sir,” said Cashel, flinging it wide open, “and go quickly, or I may do that I should be sorry for.”
“You have done that you will be sorry for, if it costs me my life's blood to buy it.” And with these words, delivered in a voice guttural from rage, Linton disappeared, and Cashel stood alone in the centre of the room, overwhelmed by the terrible conflict of his passions.
The room littered with papers, the open boxes scattered on every side, his own hands cut and bleeding from the broken glass of the window, his dress torn from the recent exertion, were evidences of the past; and it seemed as though, without such proofs, he could not credit his memory, as to events so strange and stunning.
To restore something like order to his chamber, as a means of avoiding the rumors that would be circulated by the servants; to write some letters,—the last, perhaps, he should ever indite; to dress and appear among his company; to send for some one with whom he might confer as to his affairs,—such were the impulses that alternately swayed him, and to which he yielded by turns; now seating himself at his table; now hastening hither and thither, tossing over the motley livery of distasteful pleasure, or handling, with the rapture of revenge, the weapons by which he hoped to wreak his vengeance. The only fear that dwelt upon his mind was, lest Linton should escape him,—lest, by any accident, this, which now appeared the great business of his life, should go unacquired. Sometimes he reproached himself for having postponed the hour of vengeance, not knowing what chances might intervene, what accidents interrupt the course of his sworn revenge. Fortune, wealth, station, love itself had no hold upon him; it was that mad frame of mind where one sole thought predominates, and, in its mastery, makes all else subordinate. Would Linton be true to the rendezvous?—Could such a man be a coward?—Would he compass the vengeance he had threatened by other means? were questions that constantly occurred to his mind.