“That woman,” said he, alluding to Lady Gourlay, “has taken her revenge by destroying my son.  There can be no doubt of that.  And what now prevents me from crushing this viper forever?  If my daughter were not with me, it should be done; yes, I would do it silently and secretly, ay, and surely, with my own hand.  I would have blood for blood.  What, however, if the mur—­if the act came to light!  Then I must suffer; my daughter is involved in my infamy, and all my dreams for her aggrandizement come to worse than nothing.  But I know not how it is, I fear that girl.  Her moral ascendency, as they call it, is so dreadful to me, that I often feel as if I hated her.  What right has she to subjugate a spirit like mine, by the influence of her sense of honor and her virtuous principles? or to school me to my face by her example?  I am not a man disposed to brook inferiority, yet she sometimes makes me feel as if I were a monster.  However, she is a fool, and talks of happiness as if it were anything but a chimera or a dream.  Is she herself happy?  I would be glad to see the mortal that is.  Do her virtues make her happy?  No.  Then where is the use of this boasted virtue, if it will not procure that happiness after which all are so eager in pursuit, but which none has ever yet attained?  Was Christ, who is said to have been spotless, happy?  No; he was a man of sorrows.  Away, then, with this cant of virtue.  It is a shadow, a deception; a thing, like religion, that has no existence, but takes our senses, our interests, and our passions, and works with them under its own mask.  Yet why am I afraid of my daughter? and why do I, in my heart, reverence her as a being so far superior to myself?  Why is it that I could murder—­ay, murder—­this worthless object that thrust himself, or would thrust himself, or might thrust himself, between me and the hereditary honors of my name, were it not that her very presence, if I did it, would, I feel, overpower and paralyze me with a sense of my guilt?  Yet I struck her—­I struck her; but her spirit trampled mine in the dust—­she humiliated me.  Away!  I am not like other men.  Yet for her sake this miserable wretch shall live.  I will not imbrue my hands in his blood, but shall place him where he will never cross me more.  It is one satisfaction to me, and security besides, that he knows neither his real name nor lineage; and now he shall enter this establishment under a new one.  As for Lucy, she shall be Countess of Cullamore, if she or I should die for it.”

He then swallowed another glass of wine, and was about to proceed to the stables, when a gentle tap came to the door, and Gillespie presented himself.

“All’s ready, your honor.”

“Very well, Gillespie.  I shall go with you to see that all is right, In the course of a few minutes will you bring the carriage round to the back gate?  The horses are steady, and will remain there while we conduct him down to it.  Have you a dark lantern?”