the wide
ocean?"

"Leave me, sir--leave me! =" was all the old man could utter.

"If I take you at your word," said Linton, rising, "remember that the
last gleam of hope for you departs when I close that door behind me. I
warn you that I am little given to relenting."

"Insolent scoundrel!" cried Corrigan, carried away by indignation.

"Unhandsomely spoken, old gentleman; such words are ill-befitting gray
hairs and palsied hands, but I forgive them. I repeat, however, my
nature is not over-disposed to forgiveness; an injury with me is like
a malady that leaves its mark behind it. The day may come when all
your entreaties, aided even by the fair supplications of a more gentle
penitent--"

"If you dare, sir!" cried Corrigan, interrupting; and the insolence,
schooled and practised in many a trial, quailed before the look and
gesture of the old man.

"You shall have your choice, then," said Linton. "From henceforth you
will have to confess that I am not a secret enemy." And so saying,
he opened the sash which led into the garden and passed out, leaving
Corrigan overcome by emotion, and almost panic-stricken.

The deceptions which are practised on youth are seldom attended with
lasting influence; but when they fall upon a heart chilled and saddened
by age, they are stunning in their effect, and seldom, or never, admit
of relief.

CHAPTER XXIV. GIOVANNI UNMASKED

Can sight and hearing--even touch deceive?
Or, is this real?

Play.

Probably, in all his varied life, Cashel had never passed a day less
to his satisfaction than that spent at Drumcoologan. His mind, already
tortured by anxieties, was certainly not relieved by the spectacle that
presented itself to his eyes. The fearful condition of a neglected Irish
property, where want, crime, disease, and destitution were combined, was
now seen by him for the first time. There was one predominant expression
on and over everything,--"Despair." The almost roofless cabin, the
scarce-clad children, the fevered father stretched upon his bed of clay,
the starving mother, with a dying infant at her bosom, passed before him
like the dreadful images of a dream. And then he was to hear from his
agent, that these were evils for which no remedy existed: "there
had always been fever in Ireland;" "dirt they were used to;" want of
clothing had become "natural" to them; falsehood was the first article
of their creed; their poverty was only fictitious,--this