Robert St. Amande waved his hand, exclaiming, "Since the Attorney-General testifies to it, who shall dispute it? It proves, however, nothing against our contention. Proceed, sir." "Next we have the testimony of this reverend gentleman as to the birth and christening. That you cannot dispute with any hope of success. Here, too, is the woman who took charge of the infant at its birth. Norah Mackay, of New Ross, come forward." With much fear and nervousness, this elderly woman--she who had first held my darling in her arms--came up the room, and, dropping many curtseys, stood before the great lawyer. "Norah Mackay," he said, "you state that you remember the marks upon the neck and left arm of the child christened at New Ross as the infant son of Viscount and Viscountess St. Amande, in the year seventeen hundred and eleven?" "I do, your honour's worship." "And you have examined the neck and left arm of his lordship here," indicating Gerald, "and find thereon precisely and exactly the same marks?" "I do, your honour's worship." "You swear to that?" "I swear to it." "So be it." "Ay," exclaimed Robert St. Amande, "she may swear to it fifty times an' she will. Doubtless fifty guineas would produce as many oaths. But such evidence establishes no claim, nor does it prove even then that my brother begot the brat. And this man here," pointing a lean and shaking finger at my husband, whose self-control was most marvellous, "is not that babe, I swear. The babe who was born at New Ross was drowned in the Liffey in the year 'twenty-seven." "Then," asked Sir Philip Yorke, "if such was the case to your knowledge, why, in the winter of that year, go out of your way to have this man whom you deemed an impostor shipped to the colonies to be sold as a slave in the plantations there? For that you did so endeavour we have, you know, O'Rourke's sworn testimony; and his accomplice, as you thought Mr. Quin to be, is in this house to produce your acquittance to him for so doing." And he fixed his severe eyes on the other as he spoke. CHAPTER XXXII NEMESIS Certainly Robert St. Amande looked now like a villain unmasked! All eyes were fixed upon him as he rolled his own round upon the assembled company; there was one pair, however, he did not see; the eyes of Louise, Lady St. Amande, who from behind the great pipes of the organ, had never ceased to gaze upon him and that other craven villain since they entered; and that he stood before them most thoroughly exposed he must have known well. Yet was his bravado such that he still endeavoured to brazen it all out; he still attempted to assert his wicked cause. Alas! I cannot think, even now, but that he would have desisted and have withdrawn ere it was too late could he have foreseen the dreadful tragedy that his conduct was to produce. After a few seconds he again found his tongue; once more he nerved himself to address all in that saloon, defiant still and reckless in the blackness of his heart.