ither personal feeling
nor pride of station would interfere with the negotiation; he would
entertain the question in the simple light of a bargain,--so much for
so much. The unlucky release of all claim upon their property was,
of course, to be thought of--as deteriorating, if not altogether
invalidating, the title; but of this it might be possible, perhaps, to
obtain possession. Cashel's papers must be ransacked throughout; it was
very unlikely that he had taken an unusual care of it, so that Linton
was far from supposing that this would present a serious difficulty.
But why had he not thought of this before? Why had he suffered his
disappointment to blind him to what was so palpable? "So much for
thinking the game won ere it is finished," exclaimed he; "but who would
have thought Linton should make this blunder?"

To treat with Tiernay, then, realized every advantage he could think of.
It offered the prospect of better terms, an easier negotiation; and it
presented one feature of inestimable merit in his eyes,--it afforded
the means of gratifying his hatred against Cashel, without the vengeance
costing him anything. This thought, for a while, left him incapable of
entertaining every other. Cashel reduced to poverty--humiliated to
the position of an adventurer who had obtained a property under false
pretences--was a picture he could never weary of contemplating. What a
glorious consummation of revenge, could he have involved one other in
the ruin!--if Laura had been the companion of his fall! But that scheme
had failed; a friendship--a perilous one, 't is true--had sprung up
where Linton had sowed the seeds of a very different passion; and
nothing remained but to involve them both in the disgrace and ruin which
a separation and its consequences could inflict. "Even this," thought
be, "will now be no trifling penalty,--the 'millionnaire' Roland Cashel
would have conferred an _eclat_ on the fall, that would become ludicrous
when associated with the name of a mere adventurer."

If thoughts of these vengeances afforded the most intense pleasure to
his vindictive mind, there came, ever and anon, deep regrets at the loss
of that greater game for which he had planned and plotted so anxiously.
That noble fortune which he had almost held within his grasp; that high
station from which he would have known how to derive all its advantages;
the political position he had so long ambitioned,--were now all to flit
from before his eye