She had spoken as one inspired by her wrongs; her eyes had flashed and her frame had quivered as might have quivered that of a pythoness as she denounced some creature who had outraged her gods, but the effort had been too much for her weak frame--she could sustain it no further, and, sinking back into her chair, she was but able to gasp out in conclusion, "For his sake, Charles, for the sake of an innocent child. For his sake." Upon which the Marquis, after trying to calm her, said gently: "If there are other villainies to hear, I will hear them, yet it seems impossible that more can remain behind. And, Louise," continued the old man, touching her arm very gently, "dry your tears. I cannot bear to see you shed them. Nor have you need. The boy shall be righted. I promise you." "Tell him all, Gerald; tell him all," my mother sobbed. "Oh! it would be enough to melt a heart of stone, let alone one so kind as his." So I told the Marquis everything that has here been set down. CHAPTER XI IMPRESSED "Many as are the villainies which I have known of in my life," said the Marquis, when the tale was told, "never have I known aught such as this. It appears incredible. Incredible that such things can be, and in these days. Heavens and earth!---in the days of King George the Second, when law and order are firmly established." Then he fell a-musing and lay back in the deep chair before the fire in which he had sat during the whole of my recitation, and nodded his head once or twice, and muttered to himself. After which he spake aloud and said, "And the hundred guineas that I sent to bury Gerald; they were those, I imagine, which the villain O'Rourke paid to your protector, Quin. Humph! 'Tis well they have fallen into the hands of an honest man again." It was at the collation which he offered to my mother and me, for it was now nearly two o'clock, that he once more took up the subject and spake out his heart to us, but before he did so he bade the footmen who had waited at table begone and leave us alone. And, in truth, I was glad enough to see these immense creatures leave the room and cease their ministrations to our wants, for they had wearied me, and, I think, my mother too. All our hopes were centred in what the Marquis would do to espouse my cause, so you may well imagine that the roasts appealed not to us nor did the sweetmeats and iced froth and fruit, nor the wines which they pressed upon us. But when these menials were gone, he, as I say, again went on with the subject that engrossed all our thoughts. "The first thing to do is," he said, "to obtain the certificate of the child's birth--of that of course there can be no difficulty; then proof must be forthcoming that this lad is that child--that, I imagine, can also be obtained?"