"Terrible were the ravings in which the baron alluded to the interview he had had with his murdered child; the angelic mildness and generosity of the youthful warrior; that, amid all his firmness never to depart from his claim--as it was not alone himself but his child he would irreparably injure--he never wavered in his respectful deference to his parent. He quitted the court in the belief that the baron sought Kildrummie to collect the necessary papers for substantiating his claim; but ere he died, it appeared his eyes were opened. The fierce passions of the baron had been too long restrained in the last interview; they burst even his politic control, and he had flung the papers received from, the hand of his too-confiding son on the blazing hearth, and with dreadful oaths swore that if he would not instantly retract his claim, and bind himself by the most sacred promise never to breathe the foul tale again, death should be its silent keeper. He would not bring his own head low, and avow that he had dishonored a scion of the blood-royal. "Appalled far more at the dark, fiendish passions he beheld than the threat held out to himself, Sir Walter stood silent a while, and then mildly demanded to be heard; that if so much public mortification to his parent would attend the pursuance of his claims at the present time, he would consent to forego them, on condition of his father's solemnly promising on his deathbed to reveal the truth, and do him tardy justice then, but forego them altogether he would not, were his life the forfeit. The calm firmness of his tone, it is supposed, lashed his father into greater madness, and thus the dark deed was done. "That the baron several times endeavored to possess himself of the infant child of Sir Walter, also came to light in his dying moments; that he had determined to exterminate root and branch, fearful he should still possess some clue to his birth; he had frantically avowed, but in his last hour, he would have given all his amassed treasure, his greatness, his power, but for one little moment of assurance that his grandson lived. He left him all his possessions, his lordship, his name, but as there were none came forth to claim, they of necessity passed to the crown." "But the child, the son of Sir Walter--if from him our line descends, he must have lived to manhood--why did not he demand his rights?"