t,--the
greatest he could commit. In justice to him, we will own it was of the
very rarest in occurrence. His outbreaks of anger, like his moments of
calm, were all studied beforehand; and nothing short of a catastrophe,
unexpected and overwhelming, could have surprised him into the fatal
excess of which his interview with Corrigan was an instance.

If repentance could have compensated for his sin, assuredly the offence
might have been effaced from the tablet of his misdeeds. Never was
sorrow more true, heartfelt, and cutting. He called none of his
accustomed casuistry to aid him in softening down his fault; he saw it
in all the breadth of its enormity, as a foul blot upon that system
of deceit in which years of practice had made him so perfect. He felt
compromised by himself; and possibly, to a cunning man, this is the
bitterest of all self-reproaches.

Very little consideration was needed to show that, so far as Corrigan
went, reconciliation was impossible. He knew the old man too well to
have a doubt upon that subject.

What, then, was to be done? In which was the most profitable channel to
turn the stream of coming events? Were Cashel a man of different mould,
there would be no price too high to pay for that document which stood
between him and his title to the estate. It was all the difference
between rank and obscurity--between wealth and want--between the
condition of an estated gentleman and the assumption of a mere
pretender. Wide as the alternatives lay, Linton knew they would not
affect Cashel's mind. He foresaw clearly that, in a burst of his "most
virtuous probity," he would declare Corrigan the rightful owner of the
estate, and walk forth into the world as poor as when he began it.
With Cashel, therefore, all treaty would be impossible. The next
consideration was, what terms might be made with Corrigan through
Tiernay. The rough frankness of the old doctor had always been reckoned
by Linton as a commonplace trick of certain coarse minds, to simulate
honesty and straightforwardness. He believed that mankind consisted of
but two categories,--the knave and the fool: he who was not one must
necessarily be the other. Now, an acute study of Tiernay persuaded
him that he was a shrewd, sound-headed man, whose very profession had
trained him into habits of investigation; and thought there could be
little doubt, therefore, into which class be fell. There was, moreover,
this advantage in treating with him, that ne