When Brian Luttrell left England he had no very clear idea of the places that he meant to visit, or the things that he wished to do. He wished only to leave old associations behind him—to forget, and, if possible to be forgotten.
He was conscious of a curious lack of interest in life; it seemed to him as though the very springs of his being were dried up at their source. As a matter of fact, he was thoroughly out of health, as well as out of spirits; he had been over-working himself in London, and was scarcely out of the doctor's hands before he went to Scotland; then the shock of his brother's death and the harshness of his mother toward him had contributed their share to the utter disorganisation of his faculties. In short, Brian was not himself at all; it might even be said that he was out of his right mind. He had attacks of headache, generally terminating in a kind of stupor rather than sleep, during which he could scarcely be held responsible for the things he said or did. At other times, a feverish restlessness came upon him; he could not sleep, and he could not eat; he would then go out and walk for miles and miles, until he was thoroughly exhausted. It was a wonder that his mind did not give way altogether. His sanity hung upon a thread.
It was in this state that he found himself one day upon a Rhine boat, bound for Mainz. He had a very vague notion of how he had managed to get there; he had no notion at all of his reason for travelling in that direction. It dawned upon him by degrees that he had chosen the very same route, and made the same stoppages, as he had done when he was a mere boy, travelling with his father upon the Continent. Richard and his mother had not been there; Brian and Mr. Luttrell had spent a particularly happy time together, and the remembrance of it soothed his troubled brain, and caused his eye to rest with a sort of dreamy pleasure upon the scene around him.
It was rather late for a Rhine expedition, and the boat was not at all full. Brian rather thought that the journey with his father had been taken at about the same time of the year—perhaps even a little later. He had a special memory of the wealth of Virginian creeper which covered the buildings near Coblentz. He looked out for it when the boat stopped at the landing-stage, and thought of the time when he had wandered hand-in-hand with his father in the pleasant Anlagen on the river banks, and gathered a scarlet trail of leaves from the castle walls. The leaves were in their full autumnal glory now; he must have been there at about the same season when he was a boy.
After determining this fact to his satisfaction, Brian went back to the seat that he had found for himself at the end of the boat, and began once more to watch the gliding panorama of "castled crag" and vine-clad slope, which was hardly as familiar to him as it is to most of us. But, after all, Drachenfels and Ehrenbreitstein had no great interest for him. He had no great interest in anything. Perhaps the little excitement and bustle at the landing-places pleased him more than the scenery itself—the peasants shouting to each other from the banks, the baskets of grapes handed in one after another, the patient oxen waiting in the roads between the shafts; these were sights which made no great claim upon his attention and were curiously soothing to his jaded nerves. He watched them languidly, but was not sorry from time to time to close his eyes and shut out his surroundings altogether.
The worst of it was, that when he had closed his eyes for a little time, the scene in the wood always came back to him with terrible distinctness, or else there rose up before his eyes a picture of that darkened room, with Richard's white face upon the pillow and his mother's dark form and outstretched hand. These were the memories that would not let him sleep at night or take his ease in the world by day. He could not forget the past.
There was another passenger on the boat who passed and repassed Brian several times, and looked at him with curious attention. Brian's face was one which was always apt to excite interest. It had grown thin and pallid during the past fortnight; the eyes were set in deep hollows, and wore a painfully sad expression. He looked as if he had passed through some period of illness or sorrow of which the traces could never be wholly obliterated. There was a pathetic hopelessness in his face which was somewhat remarkable in so young a man.
The passenger who regarded him with so much interest was also a young man, not more than Brian's own age, but apparently not an Englishman. He spoke English a little, though with a foreign accent, but his French was remarkably good and pure. He stopped short at last in front of Brian and eyed him attentively, evidently believing that the young man was asleep. But Brian was not asleep; he knew that the regular footstep of his travelling companion had ceased, and was hardly surprised, when he opened his eyes, to find the Frenchman—if such he were—standing before him.
Brian looked at him attentively for a moment, and recognised the fact that the young foreigner wore an ecclesiastical habit, a blacksoutaneor cassock, such as is worn in Roman Catholic seminaries, not necessarily denoting that the person who wears it has taken priest's vows upon him. Brian was not sufficiently well versed in the subject to know what grade was signified by the dress of the young ecclesiastic, but he conjectured (chiefly from its plainness and extreme shabbiness) that it was not a very high one. The young man's face pleased him. It was intellectual and refined in contour, rather of the ascetic type; with that faint redness about the heavy eyelids which suggests an insufficiency of sleep or a too great amount of study; large, penetrating, dark eyes, underneath a broad, white brow; a firm mouth and chin. There was something about his face which seemed vaguely familiar to Brian; and yet he could not in the least remember where he had seen it before, or what associations it called up in his mind.
The young man courteously raised his broad, felt hat.
"Pardon me," he said, "you are ill—suffering—can I do nothing for you?"
"I am not ill, thank you. You are very good, but I want nothing," said Brian, with a feeling of annoyance which showed itself in the coldness of his manner. And yet he was attracted rather than repelled by the stranger's voice and manner. The voice was musical, the manner decidedly prepossessing. He was not sorry that the young ecclesiastic did not seem ready to accept the rebuff, but took a seat on the bench by his side, and made a remark upon the scenery through which they were passing. Brian responded slightly enough, but with less coldness; and in a few minutes—he did not know how it happened—he was talking to the stranger more freely than he had done to anyone since he left England. Their conversation was certainly confined to trivial topics; but there was a frankness and a delicacy of perception about the young foreigner which made him a very attractive companion. He gave Brian in a few words an outline of the chief events of his life, and seemed to expect no confidence from Brian in return. He had been brought up in a Roman Catholic seminary, and was destined to become a Benedictine monk. He was on his way to join an elder priest in Mainz; thence he expected to proceed to Italy, but was not sure of his destination.
"I shall perhaps meet you again, then?" said Brian. "I am perhaps going to Italy myself."
The young man smiled and shook his head. "You are scarcely likely to encounter me, monsieur," he answered. "I shall be busy amongst the poor and sick, or at work within the monastery. I shall remember you—but I do not think that we shall meet again."
"By what name should I ask for you if I came across any of your order?" said Brian.
"I am generally known as Dino Vasari, or Brother Dino, at your service, monsieur," replied the Italian, cheerfully. "If, in your goodness, you wished to inquire after me, you should ask at the monastery of San Stefano, where I spend a few weeks every year in retreat. The Prior, Father Cristoforo, is an old friend of mine, and he will always welcome you if you should pass that way. There is good sleeping accommodation for visitors."
Brian took the trouble to make an entry in his note-book to this effect. It turned out to be a singularly useful one. As they were reaching Mainz something prompted Brian to ask a question. "Why did you speak to me this afternoon?" he said, the morbid suspiciousness of a man who is sick in mind as well as body returning full upon him. "You do not know me?"
"No, monsieur, I do not know you." The ecclesiastic's pale brow flushed; he even looked embarrassed. "Monsieur," he said at last, "you had the appearance—you will pardon my saying so—of one who was either ill or bore about with him some unspoken trouble; it is the privilege of the Order to which I hope one day to belong to offer help when help is needed; and for a moment I hoped it might be my special privilege to give some help to you."
"Why did you think so?" Brian asked, hastily. "You did not know my name?"
The Italian cast down his eyes. "Yes, monsieur," he said in a low tone, "I did know your name."
Brian started up. He did not stop to weigh probabilities; he forgot how little likely a young foreign seminarist would be to hear news of an accident in Scotland; he felt foolishly certain that his name—as that of the man who had killed his brother—must be known to all the world! It was the wildest possible delusion, such as could occur only to a man whose mind was off its balance—and even he could not retain it for more than a minute or two; but in that space of time he uttered a few wild words, which caused the young monk to raise his dark eyes to his face with a look of sorrowful compassion.
"Does everyone know my wretched story, then? Do I carry a mark about with me—like Cain?" Brian cried aloud.
"I know nothing of your story, monsieur," said Brother Dino, as he called himself, after a little pause, "When I said that I knew your name, I should more properly have said the name of your family. A gentleman of your name once visited the little town where I was brought up." He paused again and added gently, "I have peculiar reasons for remembering him. He was very good to a member of my family."
Brian had recovered his self-possession before the end of the young priest's speech, and was heartily ashamed of his own weakness.
"I beg your pardon," he said, sinking back into his seat with an air of weariness and discouragement that would have touched the heart of a tender-natured man, such as was Brother Dino of San Stefano. "I must be an utter fool to have spoken as I did. You knew my father, did you? That must be long ago."
"Many years." Brother Dino looked at the Englishman with some expression in his eyes which Brian did not remark at the moment, but which recurred afterwards to his memory as being singular. There was sympathy in it, pity, perhaps, and, above all, an intense curiosity. "Many years ago my friends knew him; not I. The Signor Luttrell—he lives still in your country?"
"No. He died eight years ago."
"And——"
A question evidently trembled on the Italian's lips, but he restrained himself. He could not ask it when he saw the pain and the dread in Brian's face. But Brian answered the question that he had meant to ask.
"My brother is dead, also. My mother is living and well."
Then he wheeled round and looked at the landing-stage, to which they were now very close. The stranger respected his emotion; he glanced once at the band of crape on Brian's arm, and then walked quietly away. When he returned it was only to say good-bye.
"I should like to see you again," Brian said to him. "Perhaps I may find you out and visit you some day. You find your life peaceful and happy, no doubt?"
"Perfectly."
"I envy you," said Brian.
They parted. Brian went away to his hotel, leaving the young seminarist still standing on the deck—a black figure with his pale hands crossed upon his breast in the glow of the evening sunshine, awaiting the arrival of his superior as a soldier waits for his commanding officer. Brian looked back at him once and waved his hand: he had not been so much interested in anyone for what seemed to him almost an eternity of time.
Sitting sadly and alone in the hotel that night, he fell to pondering over some of the words that the young Italian had spoken, and the questions that he had asked. He wondered greatly what was the service that his father had rendered to these Italians, and blamed himself a little for not asking more about the young man's history. He knew well enough that his parents had once spent two or three years abroad—chiefly in Italy; he himself had been born in an Italian town, and had spent almost the whole of the first year of his life in a little village at the foot of the Apennines. Was it not near a place called San Stefano, indeed, that he had been nursed by an Italian peasant woman? Brian determined, in a vague and dreamy way, that at some future time he would visit San Stefano, find out the history of his new acquaintance, and see the place where he had been born at the same time. That is if ever he felt inclined to do anything of the sort again. At present—and especially as the temporary interest inspired by the young Italian died away—he felt as if he cared too little for his future to resolve upon doing anything. There was a letter waiting for him, addressed in Mr. Colquhoun's handwriting. He had not even the heart to open it and see what the lawyer had to say. Something drew him next morning towards that wonderful old building of red stone, which looks as if it were hourly crumbling away, and yet has lasted so many hundred years, the cathedral of Mainz. The service was just over; the organ still murmured soft, harmonious cadences. The incense was wafted to his nostrils as he walked down the echoing nave. There had been a mass for the dead and a funeral that morning; part of the cathedral was draped in black cloth and ornamented by hundreds of wax candles, which flared in the sunlight and dropped wax on the uneven pavement below. There was an oppressiveness in the atmosphere to Brian; everything spoke to him of death and decay in that strange, old city, which might veritably be called a city of the dead. He turned aside into the cloisters, and listened mechanically while an old man discoursed to him in crabbed German concerning Fastrada's tomb and the carved face of the minstrel Frauenlob upon the cloister wall. Presently, however, the guide showed him a little door, and led him out into the pleasant grassy space round which the cloisters had been built. He was conscious of a great feeling of relief. The blue sky was above him again, and his feet were on the soft, green grass. There were tombstones amongst the grass, but they were overgrown with ivy and blossoming rose-trees. Brian sat down with a great sigh upon one of the old blocks of marble that strewed the ground, and told the guide to leave him there awhile. The man thought that he wanted to sketch the place, as many English artists did, and retired peacefully enough. Brian had no intention of sketching: he wanted only to feel himself alone, to watch the gay, little sparrows as they leaped from spray to spray of the monthly rose-trees, the waving of the long grass between the tombstones, and the glimpse of blue sky beyond the mouldering reddish walls on either hand.
As he sat there, almost as though he were waiting for some expected visitor, the cloister doors opened once more, and two or three men in black gowns came out. They were all priests except one, and this one was the young Italian whose acquaintance Brian had made upon the steamer. They were talking rapidly together; one of them seemed to be questioning the young man, and he was replying with the serene yet earnest expression of countenance which had impressed Brian so favourably. At first they stood still; by-and-bye they crossed the quadrangle, and here Brother Dino fell somewhat behind the others. Following a sudden impulse, Brian suddenly rose as he came near, and addressed him.
"Can you speak to me? I want to ask you about my father——"
He spoke in English, but the young priest replied in Italian.
"I cannot speak to you now. Wait till we meet at San Stefano."
The words might be abrupt, but the smile which followed them was so sweet, so benign, that Brian was only struck with a sudden sense of the beauty of the expression upon that keen Italian face. "God be with you!" said Brother Dino, as he passed on. He stretched out his hand; it held one of the faintly-pink, sweet roses, which he had plucked near the cloister door. He almost thrust it into Brian's passive fingers. "God be with you," he said, in his native tongue once more. "Farewell, brother." In another moment he was gone. Brian had the green enclosure, the birds and the roses to himself once more.
He looked down at the little overblown flower in his hand and carried it mechanically to his nostrils. It was very sweet.
"Why does he think that I shall go to San Stefano?" he asked himself. "What is San Stefano to me? Why should I meet him there?"
He sat down again, holding the flower loosely in one hand, and resting his head upon the other. The old langour and sickness of heart were coming back upon him; the momentary excitement had passed away. He would have given a great deal to be able to rouse himself from the depression which had taken such firm hold of his mind; but he failed to discover any means of doing so. He had a vague, morbid fancy that Brother Dino could help him to master his own trouble—he knew not how; but this hope had failed him. He did not even care to go to San Stefano.
After a little time he remembered the letter in his pocket, addressed to him in Mr. Colquhoun's handwriting. He took it out and looked at it for a few minutes. Why should Mr. Colquhoun write to him unless he had something unpleasant to say? Perhaps he was only forwarding some letters. This quiet, grassy quadrangle was a good place in which to read letters, he thought. He would open the envelope and see what Colquhoun had to say.
He opened it very slowly.
Then he started, and his hand began to tremble. The only letter enclosed was one in his mother's handwriting. Upon a slip of blue paper were a few words from the lawyer. "Forwarded to Mr. Brian Luttrell at Mrs. Luttrell's request on the 25th of October, 1877, by James Colquhoun."
Brian opened the letter. It had no formal opening, but it was carefully signed and dated, and ran as follows:—
"They tell me that I have done you an injury by doubting your word, and that I am an unnatural mother in saying—even in my own chamber—what I thought. I have an excuse, which no one knows but myself and James Colquhoun. I think it is well under present circumstances to tell you what it is.
"I am a strong believer in race. I think that the influence of blood is far more powerful than those of training or education, how strong soever they may be. Therefore, I was never astonished although I was grieved, to see that your love for Richard was not so great as that of brothers should have been——"
"It is false!" said Brian, with a groan, crushing the letter in his hand, and letting it fall to his side. "No brother could have loved Richard more than I."
Presently he took up the letter again and read.
"Because I knew," it went on, "though many a woman in my position would not have guessed the truth, that you were not Richard's brother at all: that you were not my son."
Again Brian paused, this time in utter bewilderment.
"Is my mother mad" he said to himself. "I—not her son? Who am I, then?"
"I repeat what I have said,"—so ran Mrs. Luttrell's letter—"with all the emphasis which I can lay upon the words. The matter may not be capable of proof, but the truth remains. You are not my son, not Edward Luttrell's son, not Richard Luttrell's brother—no relation of ours at all; not even of English or Scottish blood. Your parents were Italian peasant-folk; and my son, Brian Luttrell, lies buried in the churchyard of an Italian village at the foot of the Western Apennines. You are a native of San Stefano, and your mother was my nurse."
"When my child Brian was born we were renting a villa near San Stefano, and were somewhat far removed from any English doctor. My doctor was, therefore, an Italian; and what was worse, he was an Italian monk. I hate foreigners, and I hate monks; so you may imagine for yourself the way in which I looked upon him. No doubt he had a hand in the plot that has ended so miserably for me and mine, so fortunately for you.
"My Brian was nursed by our gardener's wife, a young Italian woman called Vincenza, whose child was about the age of mine. I saw Vincenza's child several times. Its eyes were brown (like yours); my baby's eyes were blue. It was when they were both about two months old that I was seized with a malarious fever, then very prevalent. They kept the children away from me for months. At last I insisted upon seeing them. The baby had been ill, they told me; I must be prepared for a great change in him. Even then my heart misgave me, I knew not why.
"Vincenza brought a child and laid it in my lap, I looked at it, and then I looked at her. She was deadly white, and her eyes were red with tears. I did not know why. Of course I see now that she had enough of the mother's heart in her to be loath to give up her child. For it was her child that she had placed upon my knee. I knew it from the very first.
"'Take this child away and give me my own,' I said. 'This is not mine.'
"The woman threw up her hands and ran out of the room. I thought she had gone to fetch my baby, and I remained with her child—a puny, crying thing—upon my knees. But she did not return. Presently my husband came in, and I appealed to him. 'Tell Vincenza to take her wretched, little baby away,' I said. 'I want my own. This is her child; not mine.'
"My husband looked at me, pityingly, as it seemed to my eyes. Suddenly the truth burst upon me. I sprang to my feet and threw the baby away from me upon the bed. 'My child is dead,' I cried. 'Tell me the truth; my child is dead.' And then I knew no more for days and weeks.
"When I recovered, I found, to my utter horror, that Vincenza and her child had not left the house. My words had been taken for the ravings of a mad woman. Every one believed the story of this wicked Italian woman who declared that it was her child who had died, mine that had lived! I knew better. Could I be mistaken in the features of my own child? Had my Brian those great, dark, brown eyes? I saw how it was. The Italians had plotted to put their child in my Brian's place; they had forgotten that a mother's instinct would know her own amongst a thousand. I accused them openly of their wickedness; and, in spite of their tears and protestations, I saw from their guilty looks that it was true. My own Brian was dead, and I was left with Vincenza's child, and expected to love it as my own.
"For nobody believed me. My husband never believed me. He maintained to the very last that you were his child and mine. I fought like a wild beast for my dead child's rights; but even I was mastered in the end. They threatened me—yes, James Colquhoun, in my husband's name, threatened me—with a madhouse, if I did not put away from me the suspicion that I had conceived. They assured me that Brian was not dead; that it was Vincenza's child that had died; that I was incapable of distinguishing one baby from another—and so on. They said that I should be separated from my own boy—my Richard, whom I tenderly loved—unless I put away from me this 'insane fancy,' and treated that Italian baby as my son. Oh, they were cruel to me—very cruel. But they got their way. I yielded because I could not bear to leave my husband and my boy. I let them place the child in my arms, and I learnt to call it Brian. I buried the secret in my own heart, but I was never once moved from my opinion. My own child was buried at San Stefano, and the boy that I took back with me to England was the gardener's son. You were that boy.
"I was silent about your parentage, but I never loved you, and my husband knew that I did not. For that reason, I suppose, he made you his favourite. He petted you, caressed you more than was reasonable or right. Only once did any conversation on the subject pass between us. He had refused to punish you when you were a boy of ten, and had quarrelled with Richard. 'Mark my words,' I said to him, 'there will be more quarrelling, and with worse results, if you do not put a stop to it now. I should never trust a lad of Italian blood.' He looked at me, turning pale as he looked. 'Have you not forgotten that unhappy delusion, then?' he said. 'It is no delusion,' I answered him, composedly, 'to remind myself sometimes that this boy—Brian, as you call him—is the son of Giovanni Vasari and his wife.' 'Margaret,' he said, 'you are a mad woman!' He went out, shutting the door hastily behind him. But he never misunderstood me again. Do you know what were his last words to me upon his death-bed? 'Don't tell him,' he said, pointing to you with his weak, dying hand, 'If you ever loved me, Margaret, don't tell him.' And then he died, before I had promised not to tell. If I had promised then, I would have kept my word.
"I knew what he meant. I resolved that I would never tell you. And but for Richard's death I would have held my tongue. But to see you in Richard's place, with Richard's money and Richard's lands, is more than I can bear. I will not tell this story to the world, but I refuse to keep you in ignorance any longer. If you like to possess Richard's wealth dishonestly, you are at liberty to do so. Any court of law would give it to you, and say that it was legally yours. There is, I imagine, no proof possible of the truth of my suspicions. Your mother and father are, I believe, both dead. I do not remember the name of the monk who acted as my doctor. There may be relations of your parents at San Stefano, but they are not likely to know the story of Vincenza's child. At any rate, you are not ignorant any longer of the reasons for which I believe it possible that you knew what you were doing when you were guilty of Richard Luttrell's death. There is not a drop of honest Scotch or English blood in your veins. You are an Italian, and I have always seen in your character the faults of the race to which by birth and parentage you belong. If I had not been weak enough to yield to the threats and the entreaties with which my husband and his tools assailed me, you would now be living, as your forefathers lived, a rude and hardy peasant on the North Italian plains; and I—I might have been a happy woman still."
The letter bore the signature "Margaret Luttrell," and that was all.
The custodian of the place wondered what had come to the English gentleman; he sat so still, with his face buried in his hands, and some open sheets of paper at his feet. The old man had a pretty, fair-haired daughter who could speak English a little. He called her and pointed out the stranger's bowed figure from one of the cloister windows.
"He looks as if he had had some bad news," said the girl. "Do you think that he is ill, father? Shall I take him a glass of water, and ask him to walk into the house?"
Brian was aroused from a maze of wretched, confused thought by the touch of Gretchen's light hand upon his arm. She had a glass of water in her hand.
"Would the gentleman not drink?" she asked him, with a look of pity that startled him from his absorption. "The sun was hot that day, and the gentleman had chosen the hottest place to sit in; would he not rather choose the cool cloister, or her father's house, for one little hour or two?"
Brian stammered out some words of thanks, and drank the water eagerly. He would not stay, however; he had bad news which compelled him to move on quickly—as quickly as possible. And then, with a certain whiteness about the lips, and a look of perplexed pain in his eyes, he picked up the papers as they lay strewn upon the grass, bowed to Gretchen with mechanical politeness, and made his way to the door by which he had come in. One thing he forgot; he never thought of it until long afterwards; the sweet, frail rose that Brother Dino had placed within his hand when he bade him God-speed. In less than an hour he was in the train; he hardly knew why or whither he was bound; he knew only that one of his restless fits had seized him and was driving him from the town in the way that it was wont to do.
Mrs. Luttrell's letter was a great shock to him. He never dreamt at first of questioning the truth of her assertions. He thought it very likely that she had been perfectly able to judge, and that her husband had been mistaken in treating the matter as a delusion. At any time, this conviction would have been a sore trouble to him, for he had loved her and her husband and Richard very tenderly, but just now it seemed to him almost more than he could bear. He had divested himself of nearly the whole of what had been considered his inheritance, because he disliked so much the thought of profiting by Richard's death; was he also now to divest himself of the only name that he had known, of the country that he loved, of the nation that he had been proud to call his own? If his mother's story were true, he was, as she had said, the son of an Italian gardener called Vasari; his name then must be Vasari; his baptismal name he did not know. And Brian Luttrell did not exist; or rather, Brian Luttrell had been buried as a baby in the little churchyard of San Stefano. It was a bitter thought to him.
But it could not be true. His whole being rose up in revolt against the suggestion that the father whom he had loved so well had not been his own father; that Richard had been of no kin to him. Surely his mother's mind must have been disordered when she refused to acknowledge him. It could not possibly be true that he was not her son. At any rate, one duty was plain to him. He must go to San Stefano and ascertain, as far as he could, the true history of the Vasari family. And in the meantime he could write to Mr. Colquhoun. He was obliged to go on to Geneva, as he knew that letters and remittances were to await him there. As soon as he had received the answer that Mr. Colquhoun would send to his letter of inquiry, he would proceed to Italy at once.
Some delay in obtaining the expected remittances kept Brian for more than a week at Geneva. And there, in spite of the seclusion in which he chose to live, and his resolute avoidance of all society, it happened that before he had been in the place three days he met an old University acquaintance—a strong, cheery, good-natured fellow called Gunston, whose passion for climbing Swiss mountains seemed to be unappeasable. He tried hard to make Brian accompany him on his next expedition, but failed. Both strength and energy were wanting to him at this time.
Mr. Colquhoun's answers to Brian's communications were short, and, to the young-man's mind, unsatisfactory. "At the time when Mrs. Luttrell first made the statement that she believed you to be Vincenza Vasari's son, her mind was in a very unsettled state. Medical evidence went to show that mothers did at times conceive a violent dislike to one or other of their children. This was probably a case in point. The Vasaris were honest, respectable people, and there was no reason to suppose that any fraud had been perpetrated. At the same time, it was impossible to convince Mrs. Luttrell that her own child had not died; and Mr. Colquhoun was of opinion that she would never acknowledge Brian as her son again, or consent to hold any personal intercourse with him."
"It would be better if I were dead and out of all this uncertainty," said Brian, bitterly, when he had read the letter. Yet, something in it gave him a sort of stimulus. He took several long excursions, late though the season was; and in a few days he again encountered Gunston, who was delighted to welcome him as a companion. Brian was a practised mountaineer; and though his health had lately been impaired, he seemed to regain it in the cold, clear air of the Swiss Alps. Gunston did not find him a genial companion; he was silent and even grim; but he was a daring climber, and exposed his life sometimes with a hardihood which approached temerity.
But a day arrived on which Brian's climbing feats came to an end. They had made an easy ascent, and were descending the mountain on the southern side, when an accident took place. It was one which often occurs, and which can be easily pictured to oneself. They were crossing some loose snow when the whole mass began to move, slowly first, then rapidly, down the slope of the mountain-side.
Brian sank almost immediately up to his waist in the snow. He noticed that the guide had turned his face to the descent and stretched out his arms, and he imitated this action as well as he was able, hoping in that manner to keep them free. But he was too deeply sunk in the snow to be able to turn round, and as he was in the rear of the others he could not see what became of his companions. He heard one shout from Gunston, and that was all—"Good God, Luttrell, we're lost!" And then the avalanche swept them onwards, first with a sharp, hissing sound, and then with a grinding roar as of thunder, and Brian gave himself up for lost, indeed.
He was not sorry. Death was the easiest possible solution of all his difficulties. He had looked for it many times; but he was glad to think that on this day, at least, he had not sought it of his own free will. He thought of his mother—he could not call her otherwise in this last hour—he thought of the father and the brother who had been dear to him in this world, and would not, he believed, be less dear to him in the next; he thought of Angela, who would be a little sorry for him, and Hugo, whom he could no longer help out of his numerous difficulties. All these memories of his old home and friends flashed over his mind in less than a second of time. He even thought of the estate, and of the Miss Murray who would inherit it. And then he tried to say a little prayer, but could not fix his mind sufficiently to put any petition into words.
And at this point he became aware that he was descending less rapidly.
His head and arms were fortunately still free. By a side glance he saw that the snow at some distance before him had stopped sliding altogether. Then it ceased to move at a still higher point, until at the spot where he lay it also became motionless, although above him it was still rushing down as if to bury him in a living grave. He threw his hands up above his head, and made a furious effort to extricate himself before the snow should freeze around him. And in this effort he was more successful than he had even hoped to be. But the pressure of the snow upon him was so great that he thought at first that it would break his ribs. When the motion had ceased, however, this pressure became less powerful; by the help of his ice-axe he managed to free himself, and knew that he was as yet unhurt, if not yet safe.
He looked round for his friend and for the guides. They had all been roped together, but the rope had broken between himself and his companions. He saw only one prostrate form, and, at some little distance, the hand of a man protruding from the white waste of snow.
The thought of affording help to the other members of the party stimulated Brian to efforts which he would not, perhaps, have made on his own account. In a short time he was able to make his way to the man lying face downwards in the snow. He had already recognised him as one of the guides. It needed but a slight examination to convince him that this man was dead—not from suffocation or cold, but from the effects of a wound inflicted in the fall. The hand, sticking out of the snow belonged to the other guide; it was cold and stiff, and with all his efforts Brian could not succeed in extricating the body from the snow in which it was tightly wedged. Of the young Englishman, Gunston, and the other guide, there was absolutely nothing to be seen.
Brian turned sick and faint when the conviction was forced upon him that he would see his friend no more. His limbs failed him; he could not go on. He was born to misfortune, he said to himself; born to bring trouble and sorrow upon his companions and friends. Without him, Gunston would not, perhaps, have attempted this ascent. And how could he carry home to Gunston's family the story of his death?
After all, it was very unlikely that he would reach the bottom of the mountain in safety. He had no guide; he was utterly ignorant of the way. There were pitfalls without number in his path—crevasses, precipices, treacherous ice-bridges, and slippery, loose snow. He would struggle on until the end came, however; better to move, even towards death, than to lie down and perish miserably of cold.
It is said sometimes that providence keeps a special watch over children and drunken men; that is to say, that those who are absolutely incapable of caring for themselves do sometimes, by wonderful good fortune, escape the dangers into which sager persons are apt to fall. So it seemed with Brian Luttrell. For hours he struggled onwards, sore pressed by cold, and fatigue, and pain; but at last, long after night had fallen, he staggered into a little hamlet on the southern side of the mountain, footsore and fainting, indeed, but otherwise unharmed.
Nobody noticed his arrival very much. The villagers took him in, put him to bed, and gave him food and drink, but they did not seem to think that he was one of "the rich Englishmen" who sometimes visited their village, and they did not at all realise what he had done. To make the descent that Brian had done without a guide would have appeared to them little short of miraculous.
Brian had no opportunity of explaining to them how he had come. He was carried insensible into the one small inn that the village contained and put to bed, where he woke up delirious and quite unable to give any account of himself. When his mind was again clear, he remembered that it was his duty to tell the story of the accident on the mountain, but as soon as he uttered a few words on the subject he was met by an animated and circumstantial account of the affair in all its details. Two Englishmen, and two guides, and a porter had been crossing the mountain when the avalanche took place; a guide and a porter had been killed, and their bodies had been recovered. One Englishman had been killed also, and the other——
"Yes, the other," began Brian, hurriedly, but the innkeeper stolidly continued his story. The other had made his way back with the guide to the nearest town. He was there still, and had been making expeditions every day upon the mountain to find the dead body of his friend. But he had given up the search now, and was returning to England on the morrow. He had done all he could, poor gentleman, and it was more than a week since the accident took place.
Brian suddenly put his head down on his pillow and lay still. Here was the chance for which his soul had yearned! If the innkeeper spoke the truth, he—Brian Luttrell—was already numbered amongst the dead. Why should he take the trouble to come back to life?
"Were none of the Englishman's clothes or effects found?" he asked, presently.
"Oh, yes, monsieur. His pocket-book—his hat. They were close to a dangerous crevasse. A guide was lowered down it for fifty, eighty, feet, but nothing of the unfortunate Englishman was to be seen. If he did not fall into the crevasse his body may be recovered in the spring—but hardly before. Yes, his pocket-book and his hat, monsieur." A sudden gleam came into the little innkeeper's eyes, and he spoke somewhat interrogatively—"Monsieur arrived here also without his hat?"
For the first time the possibility occurred to the innkeeper's mind of his guest's identity with the missing Englishman. Brian answered with a certain reluctance; he did not like the part that he would have to play.
"I lost my way in walking from V——," he said, mentioning a town at some distance from the mountain-pass by which he had really come; "and my hat was blown off by a gust of wind. The weather was not good. I lost my way."
"True, monsieur. There was rain and there was wind: doubtless monsieur wandered from the right track," said the innkeeper, accepting the explanation in all good faith.
When he left the room, Brian examined his belongings with care. Nothing in his possession was marked, owing to the fact that his clothes were mostly new ones, purchased with a view to mountaineering requirements. His pocket-book was lost. Mrs. Luttrell's letter and one or two other papers, however, remained with him, and he had sufficient money in his pockets to pay the innkeeper and preserve him from starvation for a time. He wondered that nobody had reported an unknown traveller to be lying ill in the village; but it was plain that his escape had been thought impossible. Even Gunston had given him up for lost. As he learnt afterwards, it was believed that he had not been able to sever the rope, and that he, with one of the guides, had fallen into a crevasse. The rope went straight down into the cleft, and he was believed to be at the end of it. There was not the faintest doubt in the mind of the survivors but that Brian Luttrell was dead. It remained for Brian himself to decide whether he should go back to the town, reclaim his luggage, and take up life again at the point where he seemed to have let it drop—or go forth into the world, penniless and homeless, without a name, without a hope for the future, and without a friend.
Which should he do?
"Elizabeth an heiress! Elizabeth, with a fortune of her own!" said Mrs. Heron. "It is perfectly incredible."
"It is perfectly true," rejoined her step-son. "And it has been true for the last three days."
"Then Elizabeth does not know it," replied Kitty.
"As to whether she knows it or not," said Percival, sardonically, "I am quite unable to form any opinion. Elizabeth has a talent for keeping secrets."
He was not sorry that the door opened at that moment, and that Elizabeth, entering with little Jack in her arms, must have heard his words. She flashed a quick look at him—it was one that savoured of reproach—and advanced into the middle of the room, where she stood silent, waiting to be accused.
It was twelve o'clock on the morning of a bright, cold November day. Mrs. Heron was lying on the sofa in the dining-room—a shabbily-comfortable, old-fashioned room where most of the business of the house was transacted. Kitty sat on a low chair before the fire, warming her little, cold hands. She had a cat on her lap, and a novel on the floor beside her, and looked very young, very pretty, and very idle. Percival was fidgetting about the room with a glum and sour expression of countenance. He was evidently much out of sorts, both in body and mind, for his face was unusually sallow in tint, and there was a dark, upright line between his brows which his relations knew and—dreaded. The genial, sunshiny individual of a few evenings back had disappeared, and a decidedly bad-tempered young man now took his place.
Mrs. Heron's pretty, pale face wore an unaccustomed flush; and as she looked at Elizabeth the tears came into her blue eyes, and she pressed them mildly with her handkerchief. Elizabeth waited in patience; she was not sure of the side from which the attack would be made, but she was sure that it was coming. Percival, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, leaned against a sideboard, and looked at her with disfavour. She was paler than usual, and there were dark lines beneath her eyes. What made her look like that! Percival thought to himself. One might fancy that she had been lying awake all night, if the thing were not (under the circumstances) well-nigh impossible! But perhaps it was only her ill-fitting, unbecoming, old, serge gown that made her look so pale. Percival was in the humour to see all her faults and defects that morning.
"Why do you carry that great boy about?" he said, almost harshly. "You know that he is too big to be carried. Do put him down."
"Yes, put him down, Elizabeth," said Mrs. Heron, still pressing her handkerchief to her eye. "I am sure I have no desire to inflict any hardship upon you. If you devoted yourself to my children, I thought that it was from choice and because you had an affection for your uncle's family. But you seem to have had no affection—no respect—no confidence——"
A gentle sob cut short her words.
"What have I done?" said Elizabeth. Her face had turned a shade paler than before, but betrayed no sign of confusion. "Lie still, Jack; I do not mean to put you down just yet. Indeed, I think I had better carry you upstairs again." She left the room swiftly, pausing only at the door to add a few words: "I will be down again directly. I shall be glad if Percival will wait."
There was a short silence, during which Mrs. Heron dried her eyes, and Percival stared uncomfortably at the toe of his left boot.
"Surely Elizabeth has a right to her own secrets," said Kitty, from her station on the hearth. But nobody replied.
Presently Elizabeth came down again, with a couple of letters in her hand. It seemed almost as if she had been upstairs to rub a little life and colour into her face, for her cheeks were carnation when she returned, and her eyes unusually bright.
"Will you tell me what I have done that distresses you?" she said, addressing herself steadily to Mrs. Heron, though she saw Percival glance eagerly, hungrily, towards the letters in her hand.
"Indeed, I have no right to be distressed," replied Mrs. Heron, still, however, in an exceedingly hurt tone. "Your own affairs are your own property, my dear Lizzie, as Kitty has just remarked; but, considering the care and—the—the affection-lavished upon you here——"
She stopped short; Percival's dark eyes were darting their angry lightning upon her.
"A care and affection," he said, "which condemned her to the nursery in order that she might indulge her extreme love for children, and save you the expense of a nursery-maid."
"You have no right to make such a remark, Percival!" exclaimed his step-mother, feebly, but she quailed beneath the sneer instead of resenting it. Elizabeth turned sharply upon her cousin.
"No," she said, "you have no right to make such a remark. As you know very well, I had no friends, no money, no home, when Uncle Alfred brought me here. I was a beggar—I should have starved, perhaps—but for him. I owe him everything—and I do not forget my debt."
"Everything," said Percival, incisively, "except, I suppose, your confidence."
She turned away and walked up to Mrs. Heron's sofa. Here her manner changed, it became soft and womanly; her voice took a gentler tone. "What is it, Aunt Isabel?" she said. "I am ready to give you all the confidence that you wish for. I will have no secrets from you."
"Oh, then, Lizzie, is it true?" said Kitty, upsetting the cat in her haste, and flying across the room to her cousin's side, while Mrs. Heron, taken by surprise, did nothing but sob helplessly and hold Elizabeth's firm, white hand in a feeble grasp. "Is it really true? Have you inherited a great fortune? Are you going to be very rich?"
Elizabeth made a little pause before she answered the question. "Brian Luttrell is dead," she said at last, rather slowly. "And I am very sorry."
"And the Luttrells are your cousins? And you are the heiress after them?"
"Yes."
"But when did you know this first?" said Kitty, anxiously looking up into her tall cousin's face.
"Yes, when did you know it first?" repeated Mrs. Heron, with a weak and sighing attempt at solemnity.
"I knew that I was the Luttrells' cousin all my life," said Elizabeth. There was a touch of perversity in her answer.
"Yes—yes. But when did you know that you were the next heir—or heiress? You cannot have known that all your life," said Mrs. Heron.
"I did not know that until a few days ago. I had a letter from a lawyer when Brian Luttrell went abroad. Mr. Brian Luttrell wished him to communicate with me and to tell me——"
"Well?" said Mrs. Heron, curiously. "To tell you what?"
"That it was probable that the property would come to me," Elizabeth answered, for the first time with some embarrassment, "as he did not intend to marry. And that he wished to settle a certain sum upon me—in case I might be in want of money now."
"And that was a fortnight ago?" said Percival.
"Yes," said Elizabeth, without looking at him, "nearly a fortnight ago."
"This is very interesting," said Mrs. Heron, who was languidly brightening as she heard Elizabeth's story and recognised the fact that substantial advantages were likely to accrue to the household from Elizabeth's good fortune. "And of course you accepted the offer, Lizzie dear? But why did you not tell us at once?"
"I waited until things should be settled. The matter might have fallen through. It did not seem worth while to mention it until it was settled," said Elizabeth.
"How much did he offer you? Mr. Brian Luttrell must have been a very generous man."
"I think he was—very generous," said Elizabeth, looking up warmly. "I considered the matter for some time, and I wished that I could accept his kindness, but——"
"You don't mean to say that you refused it?"
"I did not refuse it altogether," explained Elizabeth, her face glowing. "I told him my circumstances, and all that my uncle had done for me, and that if he chose to place a sum of money at my uncle's disposal—I thought that, perhaps, it would be only right, and that I ought not to place an obstacle in the way. But I could not take anything for myself."
There was a little pause.
"Oh, Lizzie, how good you are!" cried Kitty, softly.
Percival took a step nearer; his face looked very dark.
"And, pray, what did the lawyer say to your proposition?" he inquired.
"He said he must communicate with Mr. Brian Luttrell, but he thought that there would be no objection to it on his part," said Elizabeth. "But he had not time to do so, you see. Brian Luttrell is dead. Here are all the letters about it, Aunt Isabel, if you want to see them. I was going to speak to Uncle Alfred this very day."
"Well, Lizzie," said Mrs. Heron, taking the letters from her niece's hand, "I am glad that we are honoured by your confidence at last. I think it would have been better, however, if you had told us a little earlier of poor Mr. Luttrell's kindness, and then other people could have managed the business for you. Of course, it would have been repugnant to your feelings to accept money for yourself, and another person could have accepted it in your name with a much better grace."
"But that is what I wanted to avoid," said Elizabeth, with a smile. "I would not have taken one penny for myself from Mr. Brian Luttrell, but if he would have repaid my uncle for part of what he has done for me——"
Her sentence came to an abrupt end. Percival had turned aside and flung himself into an arm-chair near the fire. He was the picture of ill-humour; and something in his face took away from Elizabeth the desire to say more. Mrs. Heron read the letters complacently, and Kitty put her arm round her cousin's, waist and tried to draw her towards the hearth-rug for a gossip. But Elizabeth preserved her position near Mrs. Heron's sofa, although she looked down at the girl with a smile.
"I know what Isabel meant—what we all meant," said Kitty, "when we were so disagreeable to you a little time ago, Lizzie. We all felt that we could not for one moment have kept a secret from you, and we resented your superior self-control. Fancy your knowing all this for the last fortnight, and never saying a word about it! Tell me in confidence, Lizzie, now didn't you want to whisper it to me, under solemn vows of secrecy?"
"I'm afraid you would never have kept your vows," said Elizabeth. "I meant to tell you very soon, Kitty."
"And so you are a rich woman, Elizabeth!" observed Mrs. Heron, putting down the letters and smoothing out her dress. "Dear me, how strangely things come round! Who would have dreamt, ten years ago, that you would ever be richer than all of us—richer than your poor uncle, who was then so kind to you! Some people are very fortunate!"
"Some people deserve to be fortunate, Isabel," said Kitty, caressing Elizabeth's hand, in order to soften down the effect of Mrs. Heron's sub-acid speech. But Elizabeth did not seem to be annoyed by it. She was thinking of other things.
"I am sure that if any one deserves it, Elizabeth does," said Mrs. Heron, recovering her usual placidity of demeanour. "She has always been good and kind to everyone around her. I tremble to think of what will become of dear Harry, and Will, and Jack."
"What should become of them?" said Kitty, in a startled tone.
"When Elizabeth leaves us"—Mrs. Heron murmured, applying her handkerchief to her eyes—"the poor children will know the difference."
"But you won't leave us, will you, Elizabeth?" cried Kitty, clinging more closely to her cousin, and looking up to her with tears in her eyes. "You wouldn't go away from us, after living with us all these years, darling? Oh, I thought that you loved us as if you were really our own sister, and that nothing would ever take you away!"
Still Elizabeth did not speak. Kitty's brown head rested on her shoulder, and she stroked it gently with one hand. Her lips were very grave, but her eyes, as she raised them for a moment to Percival's face, had a smile hidden in their hazel depths—a smile which he could not understand, and which, therefore, made him angry. He rose and stood on the hearth-rug with his hands behind him, as he delivered his little homily for Kitty's benefit.
"I suppose you do not expect that Elizabeth will care to sacrifice herself all her life for us and the children," he said. "It would be as unreasonable of you to ask it as it would be foolish of her to do it. Of course, she will now begin to enjoy the world a little. She has had few enough enjoyments, hitherto—we need not grudge them to her now."
But one would have thought that he himself, grudged them to her considerably.
"What do you mean to do, Lizzie?" said Kitty, dolefully, "shall you take a house in town? or will you go and live in Scotland—all that long, long way from us? And shall you"—lifting her face rather wistfully—"shall you keep any horses and dogs?"
Elizabeth laughed; she could not help it, although her laugh brought an additional pucker to the forehead of one of her hearers, who could not detect the tremulousness that lurked behind the clear, ringing tones.
"It is well for you to laugh," he said, gloomily, "and, of course, you have the right, but——"
"How interesting it will be," Mrs. Heron's, pensive voice was understood to murmur, when Percival's gruff speech had come to a sudden conclusion, "to notice the use dear Lizzie makes of her wealth! I wonder what her income will be, and whether the Luttrells' kept up a large establishment."
"Oh," said Elizabeth, suddenly loosening herself from Kitty's arms and standing erect before them with a face that paled and eyes that deepened with emotion, "does it not occur to you through what trouble and misery this 'good fortune,' as you call it, has come to me? Does it not seem wrong to you to plan what pleasure I can get out of it, when you think of that poor mother sitting at home and mourning over her two sons—two young, strong men—dead in the very prime of life? And Miss Vivian, too, with her spoiled life and her shattered hopes—she once expected to be the mistress of the very house that they now call mine! I hate the thought of it. Please never speak to me as if it were a matter for congratulation. I should be heartily glad—heartily thankful—if Brian Luttrell were alive again!"
She sat down, and put her elbows on the table and her hands over her face. The others looked at her in amaze. Percival turned to the fire and stared into it very hard. Mrs. Heron, who was rather afraid of what she called "Elizabeth's high-flown moods," murmured a suggestion to Kitty that she ought to go to the children, and glided languidly away, beckoning her step-daughter to follow her.
Percival did not speak until Elizabeth raised her face, and then he was uncomfortably conscious that she had been crying—at least, that her long eyelashes were wet, and that in other circumstances he might have felt a desire to kiss the tears away. But this desire, if he had it, must now be carefully controlled. He did not look at her, therefore, when he spoke.
"Your feeling is somewhat over-strained, Elizabeth. We are all sorry for the Luttrells' trouble; but it is absurd to say that we must not be glad of your good fortune."
Elizabeth rose up with her eyes ablaze and her cheeks on fire.
"You know that you are not glad!" she said, almost passionately. "You know that you would rather see me poor—see me the nursery-maid, the Cinderella, that you are so fond of calling me!"
"Well," said Percival, with a short laugh, "for my own sake, perhaps, I would."
"And so would I," said Elizabeth.
"But you know, Lizzie, you will get over that feeling in time. You will find pleasure in your riches and your beauty; you will learn what enjoyment means—which you have had small chance of finding out, hitherto, in this comfortable household!" He laughed rather bitterly. "You are in the chrysalis state at present; you don't know what it is to be a butterfly. You will like that better—in time."
"I will never be a butterfly—God helping me!" said Elizabeth. She spoke solemnly, with a noble light in her whole face which made it more than beautiful. Percival turned away his eyes from it; he did not dare to look. "If I have had wealth given me," said the girl, "I will use it for worthy ends. Others shall benefit by it as well as myself."
"Don't squander it, Lizzie," said Percival, with a cynical smile, designed to cover the exceeding sadness and soreness of his heart. "Your philanthropist is not often the wisest person in the world."
"No, but I will try to use it wisely," she said, with a touch of meekness in her voice which made him feel madly inclined to fall down and kiss the very hem of her garment—or rather the lowest flounce of her shabby, dark-blue, serge gown—"and my friends will see that I do not spend it foolishly. You do not think it would be foolish to use it for the good of others, do you, Percival? I suppose I shall be thought very eccentric if I do not take a large house in London, or go much into society; but, indeed, I should not be happy in spending money in those ways——"
"Why, what on earth do you mean to do?" said Percival, sharply. "I see that you have some plan in your head; I should just like to know what it is."
She was standing beside him on the hearth-rug, and she looked up at his face and down again before she answered.
"Yes," she said, seriously, "I have a plan."
"And you mean that I have no right to inquire what it is? You are perfectly correct; I have no right, and I beg your pardon for the liberty that I have taken. I think that I had better go."
His manner was so restless, his voice so uneven and so angry, that Elizabeth lifted her eyes and studied his face a little before she replied.
"Percival," she said at last, "why are you so angry with me?"
"I'm not angry with you."
"With whom or with what, then?"
"With circumstances, I suppose. With life in general," he answered, bitterly, "when it sets up such barriers between you and me."
"What barriers?"
"My dear Elizabeth, you used to have faculties above those of the rest of your sex. Don't let your new position weaken them. I have surely not the least need to tell you what I mean."
"You overrate my faculties," said Elizabeth. "You always did. I never do know what you mean unless you tell me. I am not good at guessing."
"You need not guess then; I'll tell you. Don't you see that I am in a very unfortunate position? I said to you the other night that I—I loved you, that I would teach you to love me; and I could have done it, Elizabeth! I am sure that you would have loved me in time."
"Well?" said Elizabeth, softly. Her lips were slightly tremulous, but they were smiling, too.
"Well!" repeated her cousin. "That's all. There's an end to it. Do you think I should ever have breathed a word into your ear if I had known what I know now?"
"The fact being," said Elizabeth, "that your pride is so much stronger than your love, that you would never tell a woman you loved her if she happened to have a few pounds more than you."
"Exactly so," he answered, stubbornly.
"Then—as a matter of argument only, Percival—I think you are wrong."
"Wrong, am I? Do you think that a man likes to take gifts from his wife's hands? Do you think it is pleasant for me to hear you offer compensation to my father for the trifle that he has spent on you during the last few years, and not to be in a position to render such an offering unnecessary? I tell you it is the most galling thing in the world, and, if for one moment you thought me capable of speaking to you as I did the other night, now that I know you to be a wealthy woman, I could never look you in the face again. If I seem angry you must try to forgive me; you know me of old—I am always detestable when I am in pain—as I am now."
He struck his foot angrily against the fender; his handsome face was drawn and lined with the pain of which he spoke.
"Be patient, Percival," she said, with a smile which seemed to mock him by its very sweetness. "As you say to me, you may think differently in time."
"And what if I do think differently? What good will it be?" he asked her. "I am not patient; I am not resigned to my fate, and I never shall be; does it make the loss of my hopes any easier to bear when you tell me that I shall think differently in time? You might as well try to make a man with a broken leg forget his pain by telling him that in a hundred years' time he will be dead and buried!"
The tears stood in her eyes. She seemed startled by the intense energy with which he spoke; her next words scarcely rose above a whisper. "Percival," she said, "I don't like to see you suffer."
"Then I will leave you," he said, sternly. "For, if I stay, I can't pretend that I do not feel the pain of losing you."
He turned away, but before he had gone two steps a hand was placed upon his arm.
"I can't let you go in this way," she said. "Oh, Percival, you have always been good to me till now. I can't begin a new life by giving you pain. Don't you understand what I want to say?"
He put his hand on her shoulder and looked into her face. The deep colour flushed his own, but hers was white as snow, and she was trembling like a leaf.
"Do you love me, Elizabeth?" he said.
"I don't know," she answered, simply, "but I will marry you, Percival, if you like."
"That is not enough. Do you love me?"
"Too well," she answered, "to let you go."
And so he stayed.