puny, vile, and base in its true character and elements.  Here, then, stood the victim of his own creed, the baffled antagonist of God’s providence, who despised religion, and trampled upon its obligations; the man who strove to make himself his own deity, his own priest, and who administered to his guilty passions on the altar of a hardened and corrupted heart—­here he stood; now, struck, stunned, prostrated; whilst the veil which had hitherto concealed the hideousness of his principles, was raised up, as if by an awful hand, that he might know what it is for man to dash himself against the bosses of the Almighty’s buckler.  His heart beat, and his brain throbbed; all presence of mind, almost all consciousness, abandoned him, and he only felt that the great object of his life was lost—­the great plan, to the completion of which he had devoted all his energies, was annihilated.  He imagined that the apartment was filled with gloom and fire, and that the faces he saw about him were mocking at him, and disclosing to each other in whispers the dreadful extent, the unutterable depth of his despair and misery.  He also felt a sickness of heart, that was in itself difficult to contend with, and a weakness about the knees that rendered it nearly impossible for him to stand.  His head, too, became light and giddy, and his brain reeled so much that he tottered, and was obliged to sit, in order to prevent himself from falling.  All, however, was not to end here.  This was but the first blow.

Lord Cullamore was now about to depart; for he, too, had become exceedingly weak and exhausted, by the unusual exercise and agitation to which he had exposed himself.

Old Anthony Corbet then stepped forward, and said,

“Don’t go, my lord.  There’s strange things to come to light this day and this hour, for this is the day and this is the hour of my vengeance.”

“I do not understand you,” replied his lordship; “I was scarcely equal to the effort of coming here, and I feel myself very feeble.”

“Get his lordship some wine,” said the old man, addressing his son.  “You will be good enough to stop, my lord,” he proceeded, “for a short time.  You are a magistrate, and your presence here may be necessary.”

“Ha!” exclaimed his lordship, surprised at such language:  “this may be serious.  Proceed, my friend:  what disclosures have you to make?”

Old Corbet did not answer him, but turning round to the baronet, who was not then in a capacity to hear or observe anything apart from the terrible convulsions of agony he was suffering, he looked upon him, his keen old eyes in a blaze, his lips open and their expression sharpened by the derisive and satanic triumph that was legible in the demon sneer which kept them apart.

“Thomas Gourlay!” he exclaimed in a sharp, piercing voice of authority and conscious power, “Thomas Gourlay, rise up and stand forward, your day of doom is come.”

“Who is it that has the insolence to call my father Thomas Gourlay under this roof?” asked his son Thomas, alias Mr. Ambrose Gray.  “Begone, old man, you are mad.”