The priest saw and felt that this was true, and resolved to be guided by the hint he had unconsciously received. To remonstrate with him upon Christian principles, in that mood of mind, would, he knew, be to no purpose. If there were an assailable point about him, he concluded, from his own words, that it was in connection with the sufferings of Lady Gourlay, and the fate of her child. On this point, therefore, he resolved to sound him, and ascertain, without, if possible, alarming him, how far he would go on—whether he felt disposed to advance at all, or not.
“Well,” said the priest, “since you are resolved upon an act of vengeance—against which, as a Christian priest and a Christian man, I doubly protest—I think it only right that you should perform an act of justice also. You know it is wrong to confound the innocent with the guilty. There is Lady Gourlay, with the arrow of grief, and probably despair, rankling in her heart for years. Now, you could restore that woman to happiness—you could restore her lost child to happiness, and bid the widowed mother's heart leap for joy.”
“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?”