fear? I will brave all--anything
rather than darkness, suspense, and the consciousness of a continual
dissimulation. Declare yourself, I implore of you, and be my angel of
light and deliverance.'

There is a vast deal more, but this sample is quite enough; and when the
letter was finished, she signed it--
'Your most unhappy and too-faithful,
'GERTRUDE'.

And having sealed it, she leaned her anxious head upon her hand, and
sighed heavily.

She knew very well by what means to send it; and the letter awaited at
his house him for whom it was intended on his return that evening.

CHAPTER LXXXIII.

IN WHICH THE KNIGHT OF THE SILVER SPECTACLES MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF
THE SAGE 'BLACK DILLON,' AND CONFERS WITH HIM IN HIS RETREAT.

AT that time there had appeared in Dublin an erratic genius in the
medical craft, a young surgeon, 'Black Dillon,' they called him, the
glory and disgrace of his calling; such as are from time to time raised
up to abase the pride of intellect, and terrify the dabblers in vice. A
prodigious mind, illuminating darkness, and shivering obstacles at a
blow, with an electric force--possessing the power of a demigod, and the
lusts of a swine. Without order, without industry; defying all usages
and morality; lost for weeks together in the catacombs of vice; and
emerging to re-assert in an hour the supremacy of his intellect; without
principles or shame; laden with debt; and shattered and poisoned with
his vices; a branded and admired man.

In the presence of this outcast genius and prodigy of vice, stood Mr.
Dangerfield. There were two other gentlemen in the same small room, one
of whom was doggedly smoking, with his hat on, over the fire; the other
snoring in a crazy arm-chair, on the back of which hung his wig. The
window was small and dirty; the air muddy with tobacco-smoke, and
inflamed with whiskey. Singing and the clang of glasses was resounding
from the next room, together with peals of coarse laughter, and from
that on the other side, the high tones and hard swearing, and the
emphatic slapping of a heavy hand upon the table, indicating a rising
quarrel, were heard. From one door through another, across the narrow
floor on which Mr. Dangerfield stood, every now and then lounged some
neglected, dirty, dissipated looking inmate of these unwholesome
precincts. In fact, Surgeon Dillon's present residence was in that
diversorium p