The proud, aristocratic old face was very hard and set.
"Your father," he said monotonously, "was my only son. He was handsome—you shall see his portrait presently. And I was proud of him. So was his mother. But she should not have hidden his faults from me. It is so with women: they weaken with their pampering where discipline should strengthen. I knew nothing of his gambling at Oxford, or his reputation later on at Arthur's and White's, where Stephen Berrington became, I believe, a notable figure—as a pigeon ready for plucking.
"I remained here and knew nothing, only picturing my son according to my fancy. Then the inevitable happened. He got mixed up in one of those bubble Jacobite plots which were for ever being blown by the friends of poor Prince Charlie. He and his bosom companion, Ralph Conyers, were burning, it seemed, with zeal for the royal exile. I do not say that I altogether disapproved, though warning them of the penalties of rashness.
"They did not listen—I hardly expected them to, though I warned them again before they set out on that fatal day to Ireland, where, in due course, their hero was to land.
"I need not tell you the story in detail. They failed. The cracking of an egg-shell was no harder than the quashing of such a plot, though there were brave gentlemen concerned in it. Too much heart and too little brain is a bad mixture for success in such enterprises. Stephen was imprisoned at Dublin Castle with Ralph Conyers and others."
A long pause. Sir Henry's face was ashen, his old lips twitching nervously.
Michael's dark head was bent eagerly forward, but there was fear in his grey eyes.
"Yes," he muttered. "He was imprisoned?"
"For treason. When I heard the news I wept for my son, yet I honoured him, thinking he was giving his life for a gallant cause."
"He escaped?"