and that brief interval which separates
the life of business from that of pleasure had succeeded. Few were
stirring in the streets, and they were hastening to the dinner-parties
whose hour had now arrived. It was little more than a year since Cashel
had entered that same capital, and what a change had come over him
within that period! Then he was buoyant in all the enjoyment of youth,
health, and affluence; now, although still young, sorrow and care had
worn him into premature age. His native frankness had become distrust;
his generous reliance on the world's good faith had changed into a cold
and cautious reserve which made him detestable to himself.

Although he passed several of his former acquaintance without being
recognized, he could not persuade himself but that their avoidance of
him was intentional, and he thought he saw a purpose-like insolence in
the pressing entreaties with which the news-vendors persecuted him to
buy "The Full and True Report of the Trial of Roland Cashel for Murder."

And thus it was that he, whose fastidious modesty had shrunk from
everything like the notoriety of fashion, now saw himself exposed to
that more terrible ordeal, the notoriety of crime. The consciousness of
innocence could not harden him against the poignant suffering the late
exposure had inflicted. His whole life laid bare! Not even to gratify
the morbid curiosity of gossips; not to amuse the languid listlessness
of a world devoured by its own ennui; but far worse! to furnish motives
for an imputed crime! to give the clew to a murder! In the bitterness of
his torn heart, he asked himself: "Have I deserved all this? Is this the
just requital for my conduct towards others? Have the hospitality I have
extended, the generous assistance I have proffered--have the thousand
extravagances I have committed to gratify others--no other fruits than
these?" Alas! the answer of his enlightened intelligence could no longer
blind him by its flatteries. He recognized, at last, that to his abuse
of fortune were owing all his reverses; that the capricious extravagance
of the rich man--his misplaced generosity, his pompous display--can
create enemies far more dangerous than all the straits and appliances
of rebellious poverty; that the tie of an obligation which can ennoble a
generous nature, may, in a bad heart, develop the very darkest elements
of iniquity; and that he who refuses to be bound by gratitude is
enslaved by hate!

He stopped f