“Ah, my lord,” replied the old man, “it would be well for him if he could prove me mad, for then his nephew, the bastard, might have a chance of succeeding to the Gourlay title, and the estates.  But I must go on.  Well, my lord, after ten years or so, I came one day to Mr. Gourlay—­he was then called Sir Thomas—­and I tould him that I had relented, and couldn’t do with his brother’s son as I had promised, and as he wished me.  ‘He is living,’ said I, ’and I wish you would take him undher your own care.’  I won’t wait to tell you the abuse I got from him for not fulfillin’ his wishes; but he felt he was in my power, and was forced to continue my pension and keep himself quiet.  Well, my lord, I brought him the boy one night, undher the clouds of darkness, and we conveyed him to a lunatic asylum.”

Here he was interrupted by something between a groan and a scream from Lady Gourlay, who, however, endeavored immediately to restrain her feelings.

“From that day to this, my lord, the cruelty he received, sometimes in one madhouse and sometimes in another, sometimes in England and sometimes in Ireland, it would be terrible to know.  Everything that could wear away life was attempted, and the instruments in that black villain’s hands were well paid for their cruelty.  At length, my lord, he escaped, and wandhered about till he settled down in the town of Ballytrain.  Thomas Gourlay—­then Sir Thomas—­had been away with his family for two or three years in foreign parts, but when he went to his seat, Red Hall, near that town, he wasn’t long there till he found out that the young man named Fenton—­something unsettled, they said, in his mind—­was his brother’s son, for the baronet had been informed of his escape.  Well, he got him once more into his clutches, and in the dead hour of night, himself—­you there, Thomas Gourlay—­one of your villain servants, by name Gillespie, and my own son—­you that stand there, Thomas Corbet—­afther making the poor boy dead drunk, brought him off to one of the mad-houses that he had been in before.  He, Mr. Gourlay, then—­or Sir Thomas, if you like—­went with them a part of the way.  Providence, my lord, is never asleep, however.  The keeper of the last mad-house was more of a devil than a man.  The letter of the baronet was written to the man that had been there before him, but he was dead, and this villain took the boy and the money that had been sent with him, and there he suffered what I am afraid he will never get the betther of.”

“But what became of Sir Thomas Gourlay’s son?” asked his lordship; “and where now is Lady Gourlay’s?”

“They are both in this room, my lord.  Now, Thomas Gourlay, I will restore your son to you.  Advance, Black Baronet,” said the old man, walking over to Fenton, with a condensed tone of vengeance and triumph in his voice and features, that filled all present with awe.  “Come, now, and look upon your own work—­think, if it will comfort you, upon what you made your own flesh and blood suffer.  There he is, Black Baronet; there is your son—­dead!”