“It is true, sir; and allow me to place it in your own hands exactly as I got it.  I took the precaution to seal the pocket-book the moment it was returned to me, and although it was for a short time in possession of the officers of justice, yet it is untouched, and the seal I placed on it unbroken.”

The baronet’s hand, as he took the pocket-book, trembled with an agitation which he could not repress, although he did everything in his power to subdue it:  his eye glittered with animation, or rather with delight, as he broke the seal.

“It was very prudently and correctly done of you, sir, to seal up the pocket-book; very well done, indeed:  and I am much obliged to you so far, although we must have some conversation upon the matter immediately—­”

“I only did what, as a Catholic clergyman, Sir Thomas, and an honest man, I conceived to be my duty.”

“What—­what—­what’s this?” exclaimed the baronet, his eye blazing with rage and disappointment.  “In the name of hell’s fire, sir, what is this?  My money is not all here!  There is a note, sir, a one pound note wanting; a peculiar note, sir; a marked note; for I always put a marked note among my money, to provide against the contingency of such a robbery as I sustained.  Pray, sir, what has become of that note?  I say, priest, the whole pocket-book ten times multiplied, was not worth a fig compared with the value I placed upon that note.”

“How much did you lose, Sir Thomas?” asked the priest calmly.

“I lost sixty-nine pounds, sir.”

“Well, then,” continued the other, “would it not be well to see whether that sum is in the pocket-book.  You have not yet reckoned the money.”

“The note I speak of was in a separate compartment; in a different fold of the book; apart from the rest.”

“But perhaps it has got among them?  Had you not better try, sir?”

“True,” replied the other; and with eager and trembling hands he examined them note by note; but not finding that for which he sought, he stamped with rage, and dashing the pocket-book, notes and all, against the floor, he ground his teeth, and approaching the priest with the white froth of passion rising to his lips, exclaimed, “Hark you, priest, if you do not produce the missing note, I shall make you bitterly repent it!  You know where it is, sir!  You could understand from the note itself—­” He paused, however, for he felt at once that he might be treading dangerous ground in entering into particulars.  “I say, sir,” he proceeded, with a look of menace and fury, “if you refuse to produce the note I speak of, or to procure it for me, I shall let you know to your cost what the power of British law can effect.”

The priest rose up with dignity, his cheek heightened with that slight tinge, which a sense of unmerited insult and a consciousness of his own integrity render natural to man—­so long as he is a man.

“Sir Thomas Gourlay,” he proceeded, “upon your conduct and want of gentlemanly temper since I have entered this apartment it is not my intention to make any comment; but I need not tell you that the minister of God is received in Christian society with the respect due to his sacred office.”