Cashel Byron's Profession

Cashel's lips moved, but no sound came from them; he followed

Bashville in silence. When they entered the library Lydia was

already there. Bashville withdrew without a word. Then Cashel sat

down, and, to her consternation, bent his head on his hand and

yielded to an hysterical convulsion. Before she could resolve how to

act he looked up at her with his face distorted and discolored, and

tried to speak.

"Pray be calm," said Lydia. "I am told that you wish to speak to

me."

"I don't wish to speak to you ever again," said Cashel, hoarsely.

"You told your servant to throw me down the steps. That's enough for

me."

Lydia caught from him the tendency to sob which he was struggling

with; but she repressed it, and answered, firmly, "If my servant has

been guilty of the least incivility to you, Mr. Cashel Byron, he has

exceeded his orders."

"It doesn't matter," said Cashel. "He may thank his luck that he has

his head on. If I had planted on him that time--but HE doesn't

matter. Hold on a bit--I can't talk--I shall get my second wind

presently, and then--" Cashel stopped a moment to pant, and then

asked, "Why are you going to give me up?"

Lydia ranged her wits in battle array, and replied, "Do you remember our conversation at Mrs. Hoskyn's?"

"Yes."

"You admitted then that if the nature of your occupation became

known to me our acquaintance should cease. That has now come to

pass."

"That was all very fine talk to excuse my not telling you. But I

find, like many another man when put to the proof, that I didn't

mean it. Who told you I was a fighting man?"

"I had rather not tell you that."

"Aha!" said Cashel, with a triumph that was half choked by the

remnant of his hysteria. "Who is trying to make a secret now, I

should like to know?"

"I do so in this instance because I am afraid to expose a friend to

your resentment."

"And why? He's a man, of course; else you wouldn't be afraid. You

think that I'd go straight off and murder him. Perhaps he told you

that it would come quite natural to a man like me--a ruffian like

me--to smash him up. That comes of being a coward. People run my

profession down; not because there is a bad one or two in

it--there's plenty of bad bishops, if you come to that--but because

they're afraid of us. You may make yourself easy about your friend.

I am accustomed to get well paid for the beatings I give; and your

own common-sense ought to tell you that any one who is used to being

paid for a job is just the last person in the world to do it for

nothing."