mselves 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
t