After running over contingencies and probabilities in his fertile mind, to ascertain what sort of personal advantage might accrue to him from this incident, he could not perceive any mode of availing himself of it, except in so far as it might go to assist his plan of recovering, or rather creating, a character, the want of which he had already experienced, and was likely to feel yet more deeply.

'I must place myself,' he thought, 'on strong ground, that, if anything goes wrong with Dirk Hatteraick's project, I may have prepossessions in my favour at least.' Besides, to do Glossin justice, bad as he was, he might feel some desire to compensate to Miss Bertram in a small degree, and in a case in which his own interest did not interfere with hers, the infinite mischief which he had occasioned to her family.

He therefore resolved early the next morning to ride over to Woodbourne.
It was not without hesitation that he took this step, having the natural reluctance to face Colonel Mannering which fraud and villainy have to encounter honour and probity.

But he had great confidence in his own savoir faire.

His talents were naturally acute, and by no means confined to the line of his profession.