“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.”
“Bastard and impostor!” readied Anthony, “you appear before your time. Thomas Gourlay, did you hear me?”
By an effort—almost a superhuman effort—the baronet succeeded in turning his attention to what was going forward.
“What is this?” he exclaimed; “is this a tumult? Who dares to stir up a tumult in such a scene as this? Begone!” said he, addressing several strangers, who appeared to take a deep interest in what was likely to ensue. The house was his own, and, as a matter of course, every one left the room with the exception of those immediately connected with both families, and with the incidents of our story.
“Let no one go,” said Anthony, “that I appointed to come here.”
“What!” said Dunroe, after the strangers had gone, and with a look that indicated his sense of the baronet's duplicity, “is this gentleman your son?”
“My acknowledged son, sir,” replied the other.