aken
medicine.

"My mind, however," said he, "is what's troublin' me. There's a battle
goin' on within me. At one time I'm delighted, but the delight doesn't
give me pleasure long, for then, again, I feel a weight over me that's
worse than death. However, I can't nor won't give it up. I hope I'll
have time to repent yet; who knows but it is God that has put it into my
heart and kept it there for so many years?"

"Kept what there?" asked the stranger.

The old man's face literally blackened as he replied, almost with a
scream, "Vengeance!"

"This language," replied the other, "is absolutely shocking. Consider
your advanced state of life--consider your present illness, which may
probably be your last, and reflect that if you yourself expect pardon
from God, you must forgive your enemies."

"So I will," he replied; "but not till I've punished them; then I'll
tell them how I made my puppets of them, and when I give their heart
one last crush--one grind--and the old wretch ground his teeth in the
contemplation of this diabolical vision--ay," he repeated--"one last
grind, then I'll tell them I've done with them, and forgive them;
then--then--ay, but not till then!"

"God forgive you, Corbet, and change your heart!" replied the stranger.
"I called to say that I am about to inform Lady Gourlay that we have
her son safe at last, and I wish to know if you are in possession of
any facts that she ought to be acquainted with in connection with his
removal--in fact, to hear anything you may wish to disclose to me on the
subject."

"I could, then, disclose to you something on the subject that would make
you wondher; but although the time's at hand, it's not come yet. Here I
am, an ould man--helpless--or, at all events, helpless-lookin'--and you
would hardly believe that I'm makin' this black villain do everything
accordin' as I wish it."

"That dark spirit of vengeance," replied the stranger, "is turning your
brain, I think, or you would not say so. Whatever Sir Thomas Gourlay may
be, he is not the man to act as the puppet of any person."

"So you think; but I tell you he's acting as mine, for all that."

"Well, well, Corbet, that is your own affair. Have you anything of
importance to communicate to me, before I see Lady Gourlay? I ask you
for the last time."

"I have. The black villain and she have spoken at last. He yielded to
his daughter so far as to call upon her, and asked her to be present at
the weddin'."

"Th