“It isn’t for that I’d do it, or it would, maybe, be done long ago; but I’m not sayin’ I know where her son is.  Do you think now, if I did, that it wouldn’t gratify my heart to pull down that black villain—­to tumble him down in the eyes of all the world with disgrace and shame, from the height he’s sittin’ on, and make him a world’s wondher of villany and wickedness?”

“I know very well,” replied the priest, who, not wishing to use an unchristian argument, thought it still too good to be altogether left out, “I know very well that you cannot restore Lady Gourlay’s son, without punishing the baronet at the same time.  If you be guided by me, however, you will think only of what is due to the injured lady herself.”

“Do you think, now,” persisted Corbet, not satisfied with the priest’s answer, and following up his interrogatory, “do you think, I say, that I wouldn’t ‘a’ dragged him down like a dog in the kennel, long ago, if I knew where his brother’s son was.”

“From your hatred to Sir Thomas Gourlay,” replied the other, “I think it likely you would have tumbled him long since if you could.”

“Why,” exclaimed Corbet, with another sardonic and derisive grin, “that’s a proof of how little you know of a man’s heart.  Do you forget what I said awhile ago about the black villain—­that I have been windin’ myself about him for years, until I get him fairly into my power?  When that time comes, you’ll see what I’ll do.”

“But will that time soon come?” asked the other.  “Recollect that you are now an old man, and that old age is not the time to nourish projects of vengeance.  Death may seize you—­may take you at a short notice—­so that it is possible you may never live to execute your devilish purpose on the one hand, nor the act of justice toward Lady Gourlay on the other.  Will that time soon come, I ask?”

“So far I’ll answer you.  It’ll take a month or two—­not more.  I have good authority for what I’m sayin’.”

“And what will you do then?”

“I’ll tell you that,” he replied; and rising up, he shut his two hands, turning in his thumbs, and stretching his arms down along his body on each side, he stooped down, and looking directly and fully into the priest’s eyes, he replied, “I’ll give him back his son.”

“Tut!” returned the clergyman, whose honest heart, and sympathies were all with the widow and her sorrows; “I was thinking of Lady Gourlay’s son.  In the mane time, that’s a queer way of punishing the baronet.  You’ll give him back his son?—­pooh!”

“Ay,” replied Corbet, “that’s the way I’ll have my revenge; and maybe it’ll be a greater one than you think.  That’s all.”

This was accompanied by a sneer and a chuckle, which the ambiguous old sinner could not for the blood of him suppress.  “And now,” he added, “I must be off.”