"Margaret Luttrell."
"Margaret Luttrell."
Could he have expected more? And yet, to his excited fancy, the words seemed cold and hard.
There had been solemn council in the house of Netherglen. Mrs. Luttrell and Mr. Colquhoun had held long interviews; letters and papers of all sorts had been produced and compared; the dressing-room door was closed against all comers, and even Angela was excluded. Hugo was once summoned, and came away from the conference with the air of a desperate man at once baffled and fierce. He lurked about the dark corners of the house, as if he were afraid to appear in the light of the day; but he took no one into his confidence. Fortune, character, life itself, perhaps, seemed to him to be hanging on a thread. For, if Dino Vasari remembered his treachery and exposed it, he knew that he should be ruined and disgraced. And he was resolved not to survive any such public exposure. He would die by his own hand rather than stand in the dock as a would-be murderer.
Even if things were not so bad as that, he did not see how he was to exonerate himself from another charge; a minor one, indeed, but one which might make him look very black in some people's eyes. He had known of Dino's claims for many weeks, as well as of Brian's existence. Why had he told no one of his discoveries? What if Dino spoke of the tissue of lies which he had concocted, the forgery of Brian's handwriting, in the interview which they had had in Tarragon-street? Fortunately, Dino had burned the letter, and there had been no auditor of the conversation. Of course, he must deny that he had known anything of the matter. Dino could prove nothing against him; he could only make assertions. But assertions were awkward things sometimes.
So Hugo skulked and frowned and listened, and was told nothing definite; but saw by the light of previous knowledge that there was great excitement in the bosoms of his aunt and the family lawyer. There were letters and telegrams sent off, and Hugo was disgusted to find that he could not catch sight of their addresses, much less of their contents. Mr. Colquhoun looked gloomy; Mrs. Luttrell sternly exultant. What was going on? Was Brian coming home; or was Dino to be recognised in Brian's place?
Hugo knew nothing. But one fine autumn morning, as he was standing in the garden at Netherglen, he saw a dog-cart turn in at the gate, a dog-cart in which four men had with some difficulty squeezed themselves—the driver, Mr. Colquhoun, Dino Vasari, and a red-faced man, whom Hugo recognised, after a minute's hesitation, as the well-known solicitor, Mr. Brett.
Hugo drew back into the shrubbery and waited. He dared not show himself. He was trembling in every limb. The hour of his disgrace was drawing near.
Should he take advantage of the moment, and leave Netherglen at once, or should he wait and face it out? After a little reflection he determined to wait. From what he had seen of Dino Vasari he fancied that it would not be easy to manage him. Yet he seemed to be a simple-minded youth, fresh from the precincts of a monastery: he could surely by degrees be cajoled or bullied into silence. If he did accuse Hugo of treachery, it was better, perhaps, that the accused should be on the spot to justify himself. If only Hugo could see him before the story had been told to Mrs. Luttrell!
He loitered about the house for some time, then went to his own room, and began to pack up various articles which he should wish to take away with him, if Mrs. Luttrell expelled him from the house. At every sound upon the stairs, he paused in his occupation and looked around nervously. When the luncheon-bell rang he actually dared not go down to the dining-room. He summoned a servant, and ordered brandy and water and a biscuit, alleging I an attack of illness as an excuse for his non-appearance. And, indeed, the suspense and anxiety which he was enduring made him feel and look really ill. He was sick with the agony of his dread.
The afternoon wore on. His window commanded a view of the drive: he was sure that the guests had not yet left the house. It was four o'clock when somebody at length approached his door, knocked, and then shook the door-handle.
"Hugo! Are you there?" It was Mr. Colquhoun's voice. "Can't you open the door?"
Hugo hesitated a moment: then turned the key, leaving Mr. Colquhoun to enter if he pleased. He came in looking rather astonished at this mode of admittance.
"So! It's sick, you are, is it? Well, I don't exactly wonder at that. You've lost your chance of Netherglen, Mr. Hugo Luttrell."
Hugo's face grew livid. He looked to Mr. Colquhoun for explanation, but did not speak.
"It's just the most remarkable coincidence I ever heard of," said Mr. Colquhoun, seating himself in the least comfortable chair the room afforded, and rubbing his forehead with a great, red silk-handkerchief. "Brian alive, and meeting with the very man who had a claim to the estate! Though, of course, if one thinks of it, it is only natural they should meet, when Mrs. Luttrell, poor body, had been fool enough to send Brian to San Stefano, the very place where the child was brought up. You know the story?"
"No," said Hugo. His heart began to beat wildly. Had Dino kept silence after all?
Mr. Colquhoun launched forth upon the whole history, to which Hugo listened without a word of comment. He was leaning against the window-frame, in a position from which he could still see the drive, and his face was so white that Mr. Colquhoun at last was struck by its pallor.
"Man alive, are you going to faint, Hugo? What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I've had a headache. Then my aunt is satisfied as to the genuineness of this claim?"
"Satisfied! She's more than satisfied," said the old lawyer, with a groan. "I doubt myself whether the court will see the matter in the same light. If Miss Murray, or if Brian Luttrell, would make a good fight, I don't believe this Italian fellow would win the case. He might. Brett says he would; But Brian—God bless him! he might have told me he was living still—Brian has gone off to America, poor lad! and Elizabeth Murray—well, I'll make her fight, if I can, but I doubt—I doubt."
"My aunt wants this fellow to have Strathleckie and Netherglen, too, then?"
"Yes, she does; so you are cut out there, Hugo. Don't build on Netherglen, if Margaret Luttrell's own son is living. I must be going: Brett's to dine with me. I used to know him in London."
"Is Dino Vasari staying here, then?"
Mr. Colquhoun raised a warning finger. "You'll have to learn to call him by another name, if he stays in this house, young man," he said. "He declines to be called Brian—he has that much good sense—but it seems that Dino is short for Bernardino, or some such mouthful, and we're to call him Bernard to avoid confusion. Bernard Luttrell—humph!—I don't know whether he will stay the night or not. We met Miss Murray on our way up. The young man looked at her uncommonly hard, and asked who she was. I think he was rather struck with her. Good-bye, Hugo; take care of yourself, and don't be too downhearted. Poor Brian always told me to look after you, and I will." But the assurance did not carry the consolation to Hugo's mind which Mr. Colquhoun intended.
The two lawyers drove away to Dunmuir together. Hugo watched the red lamps of the dog-cart down the road, and then turned away from the window with a gnawing sense of anxiety, which grew more imperious every moment. He felt that he must do something to relieve it. He knew where the interview with Dino was taking place. Mrs. Luttrell had lately been growing somewhat infirm: a slight stroke of paralysis, dangerous only in that it was probably the precursor of other attacks, had rendered locomotion particularly distasteful to her. She did not like to feel that she was dependent upon others for aid, and, therefore, sat usually in a wheeled chair in her dressing-room, and it was the most easily accessible room from her sleeping apartment. She was in her dressing-room now, and Dino Vasari was with her.
Hugo stole quietly through the passage until he reached the door of Mrs. Luttrell's bed-room, which was ajar. He slipped into the room and looked round. It was dimly lighted by the red glow of the fire, and by this dim light he saw that the door into the dressing-room was also not quite closed. He could hear the sound of voices. He paused a moment, and then advanced. There was a high screen near the door, of which one fold was so close to the wall that only a slight figure could slip behind it, though, when once behind there, it would be entirely hidden. Hugo measured it with his eye: he would have to pass the aperture of the door to reach it, but a cautious glance from a distance assured him that both Mrs. Luttrell and Dino had their backs to him and could not see. He ensconced himself, therefore, between the screen and the wall: he could see nothing, but every word fell distinctly upon his ear.
"Sit down beside me," Mrs. Luttrell was saying—how could her voice have grown so tender?—"and tell me everything about your past life. I knew—I always knew—that that other child was not my son. I have my own Brian now. Call me mother: it is long since I have heard the word."
"Mother!" Dino's musical tones were tremulous. "My mother! I have thought of her all my life."
"Ay, my poor son, and but for the wickedness of others, I might have seen and known you years ago. I had an interloper in my house throughout all those years, and he worked me the bitterest sorrow of my life."
"Do not speak so of Brian, mother," said Dino, gently. "He loved you—and he loved Richard. His loss—his grief—has been greater even than yours."
"How dare you say so to me?" said Mrs. Luttrell, with a momentary return to her old, grim tones. Then, immediately softening them—"But you may say anything you like. It is pleasure enough to hear your voice. You must stay with me, Brian, and let me feast my eyes on you for a time. I have no patience, no moderation left: 'my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.'"
He raised his mother's hand and kissed it silently. The action would, of course, have been lost upon Hugo, as he could not see the pair, but for Mrs. Luttrell's next words.
"Nay," she said, "kiss me on the cheek, not on the hand, Brian. I let Hugo Luttrell do it, because of his foreign blood; but you have only a foreign training which you must forget. They said something about your wearing a priest's dress: I am glad you did not wear it here, for you would have been mobbed in Dunmuir. It's a sad pity that you're a Papist, Brian; but we must set Mr. Drummond, our minister, to talk to you, and he'll soon show you the error of your ways."
"I shall be very glad to hear what Mr. Drummond has to say," said Dino, with all the courtesy which his monastic training had instilled; "but I fear that he will have his labour thrown away. And I have one or two things to tell you, mother, now that those gentlemen have gone. If I am to disappoint you, let me do it at once, so that you may understand."
"Disappoint me? and how can you do that?" asked Mrs. Luttrell, scornfully. "Perhaps you mean that you will winter in the South! If your health requires it, do you think I would stand in the way? You have a sickly air, but it makes you all the more like one whom I well remember—your father's brother, who died of a decline in early youth. No, go if you like; I will not tie you down. You can come back in the summer, and then we will think about your settling down and marrying. There are plenty of nice girls in the neighbourhood, though none so good as Angela, nor perhaps so handsome as Elizabeth Murray."
"Mother, I shall never marry."
"Not marry? and why not?" cried Mrs. Luttrell, indignantly. "But you say this to tease me only; being a Luttrell—the only Luttrell, indeed, save Hugo, that remains—you must marry and continue the family."
"I shall never marry," said Dino, with a firmness which at last seemed to make an impression upon Mrs. Luttrell, "because I am going to be a monk."
Hugo could not stifle a quick catching of his breath. Did Dino mean what he said? And what effect would this decision have upon the lives of the many persons whose future seemed to be bound up with his? What would Mrs. Luttrell say?
At first she said nothing. And then Dino's voice was heard again.
"Mother, my mother, do not look at me like that. I must follow my vocation. I would have given myself years ago, but I was not allowed. The Prior will receive me now. And nothing on earth will turn me from my resolution. I have made up my mind."
"What!" said Mrs. Luttrell, very slowly. "You will desert me too, after all these years!"
Dino answered by repeating in Latin the words—"He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." But Mrs. Luttrell interrupted him angrily.
"I want none of your Latin gibberish," she said. "I want plain commonsense. If you go into a monastery, do you intend to give the property to the monks? Perhaps you want to turn Netherglen into a convent, and establish a priory at Strathleckie? Well, I cannot prevent you. What fools we are to think that there is any happiness in this world!"
"Mother!" said Dino, and his voice was very gentle, "let me speak to you of another before we talk about the estates. Let me speak to you of Brian."
"Brian!" Her voice had a checked tone for a moment; then she recovered herself and spoke in her usual harsh way. "I know no one of that name but you."
"I mean my friend whom you thought to be your son for so many years, mother. Have you no tenderness for him? Do you not think of him with a little love and pity? Let me tell you what he suffered. When he came to us first at San Stefano he was nearly dying of grief. It was long before we nursed him back to health. When I think how we all learnt to love him, mother, I cannot but believe that you must love him, too."
"I never loved him," said Mrs. Luttrell. "He stood in your place. If you had a spark of proper pride in you, you would know that he was your enemy, and you will feel towards him as I do."
"He is an enemy that I have learned to love," answered Dino. "At any rate, mother"—his voice always softened when he called her by that name—"at any rate, you will try to love him now."
"Why now?" She asked the question sharply.
"Because I mean him to fill my place."
There was a little silence, in which the fall of a cinder from the grate could be distinctly heard. Then Mrs. Luttrell uttered a long, low moan. "Oh, my God!" she said. "What have I done that I should be tormented in this way?"
"Mother, mother, do not say so," said Dino, evidently with deep emotion. Then, in a lower and more earnest voice, he added—"Perhaps if you had tried to love the child that Vincenza placed within your arms that day, you would have felt joy and not sorrow now."
"Do you dare to rebuke your mother?" said Mrs. Luttrell, fiercely. "If I had loved that child, I would never have acknowledged you to-day. Not though all the witnesses in the world swore to your story."
"That perhaps would have been the better for me," said Dino, softly. "Mother, I am going away from you for ever; let me leave you another son. He has never grieved you willingly; forgive him for those misfortunes which he could not help; love him instead of me."
"Never!"
"He has gone to the other side of the world, but I think he would come back if he knew that you had need of him. Let me send him a line, a word, from you: make him the master of Netherglen, and let me go in peace."
"I will not hear his name, I will not tolerate his presence within these walls," cried Mrs. Luttrell, passionately. "He was never dear to me, never; and he is hateful to me now. He has robbed me of both my sons: his hand struck Richard down, and for twenty-three years he usurped your place. I will never see him again. I will never forgive him so long as my tongue can speak."
"Then may God forgive you," said Dino, in a strangely solemn voice, "for you are doing a worse injustice, a worse wrong, than that done by the poor woman who tried to put her child in your son's place. Have you held that child upon your knee, kissed his face, and seen him grow up to manhood, without a particle of love for him in your heart? Did you send him away from you with bitter reproaches, because of the accident which he would have given his own life to prevent? You have spoilt his life, and you do not care. Your heart is hard then, and God will not let that hardness go unpunished. Mother, pray that his judgments may not descend upon you for this."
"You have no right to talk to me in that way," said Mrs. Luttrell, with a great effort. "I have not been unjust. You are ungrateful. If you go away from me, I will leave all that I possess to Hugo, as I intended to do. Brian, as you call him—Vincenza Vasari's son—shall have nothing."
"And Brian is to be disinherited in favour of Hugo Luttrell, is he?" said Dino, in a still lower voice, but one which the listener felt instinctively had a dangerous sound. "Do you know what manner of man this Hugo Luttrell is, that you wish to enrich him with your wealth, and make him the master of Netherglen?"
"I know no harm of him," she answered.
He paused a little, and turned his face—was it consciously or unconsciously?—towards the open door, from which could be seen the screen, behind which the unhappy listener crouched and quivered in agony of fear. Willingly would Hugo have turned and fled, but flight was now impossible. The fire was blazing brightly, and threw a red glow over all the room. If he emerged from behind the screen, his figure would be distinctly visible to Dino, whose face was turned in that direction. What was he going to say?
"I know no harm of him," she answered.
"Then I will enlighten you. Hugo Luttrell knew that Brian was alive, that I was in England, two months ago. A letter from the Prior of San Stefano must have been in some way intercepted by him; he made use of his knowledge, however he obtained it, to bring the messages from Brian which were utterly false, to try and induce me to relinquish my claim on you; he forged a letter from Brian for that purpose; and finally——"
Mrs. Luttrell's voice, harsh and strident with emotion, against which she did her best to fight, broke the sudden silence.
"Do you call it fair and right," she said, "to accuse a man of such faults as these behind his back? If you want to tell me anything against Hugo, send for him and tell it to me in his presence. Then he can defend himself."
"He will try to defend himself, no doubt," said Dino, with a note of melancholy scorn in his grave, young voice. "But I will do nothing behind his back. You wish him to be summoned?"
"Yes, I do. Ring the bell instantly!" cried Mrs. Luttrell, whose loving ardour seemed to have given way to the most unmitigated resentment.
"Tell the servants to find him and bring him here."
"They would not have far to go," said Dino, coolly. "He is close to hand. Hugo Luttrell, come here and answer for yourself."
"What do you mean? Where is he?" exclaimed Mrs. Luttrell, struck with his tone of command. "He is not in this room!"
"No, but he is in the next, hiding behind that screen. He has been there for the last half-hour. You need play the spy no longer, sir. Have the goodness to step forward and show yourself."
The inexorable sternness of his voice struck the listeners with amaze. Pale as a ghost, trembling like an aspen leaf, Hugo emerged from his hiding-place, and confronted the mother and the son.
"Confess!" said Dino, whose stern voice and outstretched, pointing finger seemed terrible as those of some accusing and avenging angel to the wretched culprit. "Confess that I have only told the truth. Confess that you lied and forged and cheated | to gain your own ends. Confess that when other means failed you tried to kill me. Confess—and then"—with a sudden lowering of his tones to the most wonderful exquisite tenderness—"God knows that I shall be ready to forgive!"
But the last words passed unheeded. Hugo cowered before his eye, covered his ears with his hands, and made a sudden dash to the door, with a cry that was more like the howl of a hunted wild animal, than the utterance of a human being. Mrs. Luttrell called for help, and half-rose from her chair. But Dino laid his hand upon her arm.
"Let him go," said he. "I have no desire to punish him. But I must warn you."
The door clanged behind the flying figure, and awakened the echoes of the old house. Hugo was gone: whither they knew not: away, perhaps, into the world of darkness that reigned without. Mrs. Luttrell sank back into her chair, trembling from head to foot.
"Mother," said Dino, going up to her, and kneeling before her, "forgive me if I have spoken too violently. But I could not bear that you should never know what sort of man this Hugo Luttrell has grown to be."
Her hand closed convulsively on his. "How—how did you know—that he was there?"
"I saw his reflection in the mirror before me as he passed the open door. He was afraid, and he hid himself there to listen. Mother, never trust him again."
"Never—never," she stammered. "Stay with me—protect me."
"You will not need my protection," he said, looking at her with calm, surprised eyes. "You will have your friends: Mr. Colquhoun, and the beautiful lady that you call Angela. And, for my sake, let me think that you will have Brian, too."
"No, no!" Her voice took new strength as she answered him, and she snatched her hand angrily away from his close clasp. "I will never speak to him again."
"Not even when he returns?"
"You told me that he was gone to America!"
"I feel sure that some day he will come back. He will learn the truth—that I have withdrawn my claim; then he and Miss Murray must settle the matter of property between them. They may divide it; or they might even marry."
His voice was perfectly calm; he had brooded over this arrangement for so long that it scarcely struck him how terrible it would sound in Mrs. Luttrell's ears.
"Do you mean it?" she said, feebly. "You renounce your claim—to be—my son?"
"Oh, not your son, mother," he said, kissing the cold hand, which she immediately drew away from him. "Not your son! Not the claim to be loved, and the right to love you! But let that rest between ourselves. Why should the money that I do not want come between me and you, between me and my friend? Let Brian come home, and you will have two sons instead of one."
"Rather say that I shall have no son at all," said Mrs. Luttrell, with gathering anger. "If you do this thing I cast you off. I forbid you to give what is your own to Vincenza Vasari's son."
"You make it hard for me to act if you forbid me," said Dino, rising and standing before her with a pleading look upon his face. "But I hold to my intention, mother. I will not touch a penny of this fortune. It shall be Brian's, or Miss Murray's—never mine."
"The matter is in a lawyer's hands. Your rights will be proved in spite of you."
"I do not think they will. I hold the proofs in my hand. I can destroy them every one, if I choose."
"But you will not choose. Besides, these are the copies, not the originals."
"No, excuse me. I obtained the originals from Mr. Brett. He expects me to take them back to him to-night." Dino held out a roll of papers. "They're all here. I will not burn them, mother, if you will send for Brian back and let him have his share."
"They would be no use if he came back. You must have the whole or nothing. Let us make a bargain; give up your scheme of entering a monastery, and then I will consent to some arrangement with Brian about money matters. But I will never see him!"
Dino shook his head. He turned to the fireplace with the papers in his hand.
"I withdraw my claims," he said, simply.
Mrs. Luttrell was quivering with suppressed excitement, but she mastered herself sufficiently to speak with perfect coldness.
"Unless you consent to abandon a monastic life, I would rather that your claims were given up," she said. "Let Elizabeth Murray keep the property, and do you and the man Vasari go your separate ways."
"Mother——"
"Call me 'mother' no longer," she said, sternly, "you are no more my son than he was, if you can leave me, in my loneliness and widowhood, to be a monk."
"Then—this is the end," said Dino.
With a sudden movement of the hand he placed the roll of papers in the very centre of the glowing fire. Mrs. Luttrell uttered a faint cry, and struggled to rise to her feet, but she had not the strength to do so. Besides, it was too late. With the poker, Dino held down the blazing mass, until nothing but a charred and blackened ruin remained. Then he laid down the poker, and faced Mrs. Luttrell with a wavering but victorious smile.
"It is done," he said, with something of exultation in his tone. "Now I am free. I have long seen that this was the only thing to do. And now I can acknowledge that the temptation was very great."
With lifted head and kindling eye, he looked, in this hour of triumph over himself, as if no temptation had ever assailed, or ever could assail, him. But then his glance fell upon Mrs. Luttrell, whose hands fiercely clutched the arms of her chair, whose features worked with uncontrollable agitation. He fell on his knees before her.
"Mother!" he cried. "Forgive me. Perhaps I was wrong. I will—I will ... I will pray for you."
The last few words were spoken after a long pause, with a fall in his voice, which showed that they were not those which he had intended to say when he began the sentence. There was something solemn and pathetic in the sound. But Mrs. Luttrell would not hear.
"Go!" she said, hoarsely. "Go. You are no son of mine. Sooner Brian—or Hugo—than you. Go back to your monastery."
She thrust him away from her with her hands when he tried to plead. And at last he saw that there was no use in arguing, for she pulled a bell which hung within her reach, and, when the servant appeared, she placed the matter beyond dispute by saying sharply:—
"Show this gentleman out."
Dino looked at her face, clasped his hands in one last silent entreaty, and—went. There was no use in staying longer. The door closed behind him, and the woman who had thrust away from her the love that might have been hers, but for her selfishness and hardness of heart, was left alone.
A whirl of raging, angry thoughts made her brain throb and reel. She had put away from her what might have been the great joy of her life; her will, which had never been controlled by another, had been simply set aside and disregarded. What was there left for her to do? All the repentance in the world would not give her back the precious papers that her son had burnt before her eyes. And where had he gone? Back to his monastery? Should she never, never see him again? Was he tramping the long and weary way to the Dunmuir station, where the railway engine would presently come shrieking and sweeping out of the darkness, and, like a fabled monster in some old fairy tale, gather him into its embrace, and bear him away to a place whence he would never more return?
So grotesque this fancy appeared to her that her anger failed her, and she laughed a little to herself—laughed with bloodless lips that made no sound. A kind of numbness of thought came over her: she sat for a little time in blank unconsciousness of her sorrow, and yet she did not sleep. And then a host of vividly-pictured images began to succeed each other with frightful rapidity across thetabula rasaof her mind.
It seemed to her in that quiet hour she saw her son as he walked dawn the dark road to Dunmuir. The moon was just rising; the trees on either hand lifted their gaunt branches to a wild and starless sky. Whose face, white as that of a corpse, gleamed from between those leafless stems? Hugo's, surely. And what did he hold in his hand? Was it a knife on which a faint ray of moonlight was palely reflected? He was watching for that solitary traveller who came with heedless step and hanging head upon the lonely road. In another moment the spring would be taken, the thrust made, and a dying man's blood would well out upon the stones. Could she do nothing? "Brian! Brian!" she cried—or strove to cry; but the shriek seemed to be stifled before it left her lips. "Brian!" Three times she tried to call his name, with an agony of effort which, perhaps, brought her back to consciousness—for the dream, if dream it was, vanished, and she awoke.
Awoke—to the remembrance of what she had heard, concerning Hugo's attempt on Dino's life, and the fact that she had sent her son out of the house to walk to Dunmuir alone. She was not so blind to Hugo's inherited proclivities to passion and revenge as she pretended to be. She knew that he was a dangerous enemy, and that Dino had incurred his hatred. What might not happen on that lonely road between Netherglen and Dunmuir if Dino (Brian, she called him) traversed it unwarned, alone, unarmed? She must send servants after him at once, to guard him as he went upon his way. She heard her maid in the next room. Should she call Janet, or should she ring the bell?
What a curiously-helpless sensation had come over her! She did not seem able to rouse herself. She could not lift her hand. She was tired; that was it. She would call Janet. "Janet!" But Janet did not hear.
How was it that she could not speak? Her faculties were as clear as usual: her memory was as strong as ever it had been. She knew exactly what she wanted: she could arrange in her own mind the sentences that she wished to say. But, try as she would, she could not articulate a word, she could not raise a finger, or make a sign. And again the terrible dread of what would happen to the son she loved took possession of her mind.
Oh, if only he would return, she would let him have his way. What did it matter that the proof of his birth had been destroyed? She would acknowledge him as her son before all the world; and she would let him divide his heritage with whomsoever he chose. Netherglen should be his, and the three claimants might settle between themselves, whether the rest of the property should belong to one of them, or be divided amongst the three. He might even go back to San Stefano; she would love him and bless him throughout, if only she knew that his life was safe. She went further. She seemed to be pleading with fate—or rather with God—for the safety of her son. She would receive Brian with open arms; she would try to love him for Dino's sake. She would do all and everything that Dino required from her, if only she could conquer this terrible helplessness of feeling, this dumbness of tongue which had come over her. Surely it was but a passing phase: surely when someone came and stood before her the spell would be broken, and she would be able to speak once more.
The maid peeped in, thought she was sleeping, and quietly retired. No one ventured to disturb Mrs. Luttrell if she nodded, for at night she slept so little that even a few minutes' slumber in the daytime was a boon to her. A silent, motionless figure in her great arm-chair, with her hands folded before her in her lap, she sat—not sleeping—with all her senses unnaturally sharpened, it seemed to her; hearing every sound in the house, noting every change in the red embers of the fire in which the proof of her son's history had been consumed, and all the while picturing to herself some terrible tragedy going on outside the house, which a word from her might have averted. And she not able to pronounce that word!
Dino, meanwhile, had plunged into the darkness, without a thought of fear for himself. He walked away from the house just as she had seen him in her waking dream, with head bent and eyes fixed on the ground. He took the right road to Dunmuir, more by accident than by design, and walked beneath the rows of sheltering trees, through which the loch gleamed whitely on the one hand, while on the other the woods looked ominously black, without a thought of the revengeful ferocity which lurked beneath the velvet smoothness of Hugo Luttrell's outer demeanour. If something moved amongst the trees on his right hand, if something crouched amongst the brushwood, like a wild animal prepared to spring, he neither saw nor heard the tokens which might have moved him to suspicion. But suddenly it seemed to him that a wild cry rang out upon the stillness of the night air. His friend's name—or was it his own?—three times repeated, in tones of heartrending pain and terror. "Brian! Brian! Brian!" Whose voice had called him? Not that of anyone he knew. And yet, what stranger would use that name? He stopped, looked round, and answered:—
"Yes, I am here."
And then it struck him that the voice had been close beside him, and that, standing where he stood in the middle of the long, white road, it was quite impossible that any one could be so near, and yet remain unseen.
With a slight shudder he let his eyes explore the sides of the road: the hedgerows, and the bank that rose on his right hand towards the wood. Surely there was something that moved and stopped, and moved again amongst the bracken. With one bound Dino reached the moving object, and dragged it forth into the light. He knew whom he was touching before he saw the face. It was Hugo who lurked in the hedgerows, waiting—and for what?
"You heard it?" said Dino, as the young man crouched before him, scarcely daring to lift up his head, although at that moment, if he had had his wits about him, he could not have had a better chance for the accomplishment of any sinister design. "Who called?"
Hugo cast a quick startled glance at the wood behind him. "I heard nothing," he said, sullenly.
"I heard a voice that called me," said Dino. Then he looked at Hugo, and pressed his shoulder somewhat heavily with his hand. "What were you doing there? For whom were you waiting?"
"For nobody," muttered Hugo.
"Are you sure of that? I could almost believe that you were waiting for me; and should I be far wrong? When I think of that other time, when you deceived me, and trapped me, and left me dying, as you thought, in the streets, I can believe anything of you now."
Hugo's trembling lips refused to articulate a word. He could neither deny the charge nor plead for mercy.
Dino's exultation of mood led him to despise an appeal to any but the higher motives. He would not condescend to threaten Hugo with the police-court and the criminal cell. He loosed his hold on the young man's shoulder, and told him to rise from the half-kneeling posture, to which fear, rather than Dino's strength, had brought him. And when Hugo stood before him, he spoke in the tone of one to whom the spiritual side of life was more real, more important than any other, and it seemed to Hugo as if he spoke from out some other world.
"There is a day coming," he said, "when the secrets of all men's hearts will be revealed. And where will you be, what will you do in that dread day? When you stand before the Judge of all men on His great white Throne, how will you justify yourself to Him?"
The strong conviction, the deep penetrating accents of his words, carried a sting to Hugo's conscience. He felt as if Dino had a supernatural knowledge of his past life and his future, when he said solemnly:—
"Think of the secrets of your heart which shall then be made known to all men. What have you done? Have you not broken God's laws? Have you not in very truth committed murder?... There is a commandment in God's Word which says, 'Thou shalt not kill.'"
"Stop, stop, for Heaven's sake, stop!" gasped Hugo, covering his face with his hands. "How can you know all this? I did not mean to kill him. I meant only to have my revenge. I did not know——"
"Nay, do not try to excuse yourself," said Dino, who caught the words imperfectly, and did not understand that they referred to any crime but the one so nearly accomplished against himself. "God knows all. He saw what you did: He can make it manifest in His own way. Confess to Him now: not to me. I pardon you."
There was a great sob from behind Hugo's quivering fingers; but it was only of relief, not repentance. Dino waited a moment or two before he said, with the tone of quiet authority which was natural to him:—
"Now fetch me the knife which you dropped amongst the ferns by the hedge over there."
With the keen, quick sight that he possessed, he had caught a glimpse of it in the scuffle, and seen it drop from Hugo's hand. But the young Sicilian took the order as another proof of the sort of superhuman knowledge of his deeds and motives which he attributed to Dino Vasari, and went submissively to the place where the weapon was lying, picked it up, and with hanging head, presented it humbly to the man whose spiritual force had for the moment mastered him.
"You must not return to Netherglen," said Dino, looking at him as he spoke. "My mother will not see you again: she does not want you near her. You understand?"
Hugo assented, with a sort of stifled groan.
"I was forced to tell her, in order to put her on her guard. But if you obey me, I will tell no one else. I have not even told Brian. If I find that you return to your evil courses, I shall keep the secret of your conduct no longer. Then, when Brian comes home, he can reckon with you."
"Brian!" ejaculated Hugo.
"Yes: Brian. What I require from you is that you trouble Netherglen no more. I cannot think of you with peace in my mother's house. You will leave it to-night—at once."
"Yes," Hugo muttered. He had no desire to return to Netherglen.
"I am going to Dunmuir," said Dino. "You can walk on with me."
Hugo made no opposition. He turned his face vaguely in the specified direction, and moved onward; but the sound of Dino's voice, clear and cold, gave him a thrill of shame, amounting to positive physical pain.
"Walk before me, if you please. I cannot trust you."
They walked on: Hugo a pace or two in front, Dino behind. Not a word was spoken between them until they reached the chief street of Dunmuir, and then Dino called to him to pause. They were standing in front of Mr. Colquhoun's door.
"You are not going in here?" said Hugo, with a sharp note of terror in his voice. "You will not tell Colquhoun?"
"I will tell no one," said Dino, "so long as you fulfil the condition I have laid upon you. This is our last word on the subject. God forgive you, as I do."
They stood for a moment, face to face. The moon had risen, and its light fell peacefully upon the paved street, the old stone houses, the broad, beautiful river with its wooded banks, the distant sweep of hills. It fell also on the faces of the two men, not unlike in feature and colouring, but totally dissimilar in expression, and seemed to intensify every point of difference between them. There was a lofty serenity upon Dino Vasari's brow, while guilt and fear and misery were deeply imprinted on Hugo's boyish, beautiful face. For the first time the contrast between them struck forcibly on Hugo's mind. He leaned against the stone wall of Mr. Colquhoun's house, and gave vent to his emotion in one bitter, remorseful sob of pain.
Mr. Colquhoun and Mr. Brett were sitting over their wine in the well-lighted, well-warmed dining-room of the lawyer's house. They had been friends in their earlier days, and were delighted to have an opportunity of meeting (in a strictly unprofessional way) and chatting over the memories of their youth. It was a surprise to both of them when the door was opened to admit Dino Vasari and Hugo Luttrell: two of the last visitors whom Mr. Colquhoun expected. His bow to Dino was a little stiff: his greeting of Hugo more cordial than usual.
"You come from Mrs. Luttrell?" he asked, in surprise.
Hugo's pallid lips, and look of agitation, convinced him that some disaster was impending. But Dino answered with great composure.
"I come to bring you news which I think ought not to be kept from you for a moment longer than is necessary," he said.
"Pray take a glass of wine, Mr.—er—Mr.——" The lawyer did not quite know how to address his visitor. "Won't you sit down, Hugo?"
"I have not come to stay," said Dino. "I am going to the hotel for the night. I wished only to speak to you at once." He put one hand on the table by which he was standing and glanced at Mr. Brett. For the first time he showed some embarrassment. "I hope it will not inconvenience you," he said, "if I tell you that I have withdrawn my claim."
Dead silence fell on the assembly. Mr. Brett pushed back his chair a little way and stared. Mr. Colquhoun shook his head and smiled.
"I find," continued Dino, "that Mrs. Luttrell and I have entirely different views as to the disposition of the property and the life that I ought to lead. I cannot give up my plans—even for her. The easiest way to set things straight is to let the estate remain in Miss Murray's hands."
"You can't!" said Mr. Colquhoun, abruptly. "Brian Luttrell is alive!"
"Then let it go to Brian Luttrell."
"My dear sir," said Mr. Brett, "you have offered us complete documentary evidence that the gentleman now on his way to America is not Brian Luttrell at all."
"Yes, but there is only documentary evidence," said Dino. "The deaths of Vincenza Vasari and Rosa Naldi in a railway accident deprived us of anything else."
"Where are those papers?" asked Mr. Brett, sharply. "I hope they are safe."
"Quite safe, Mr. Brett. I have burnt them all." The shock of this communication was too much, even for the case-hardened Mr. Brett. He turned positively pale.
"Burnt them! Burnt them!" he ejaculated. "Oh, the man is mad. Burnt the proofs of his position and birth——"
"I have done all that I wanted to do," said Dino, colouring as the three pairs of eyes were fastened upon him with different expressions of disbelief, surprise, and even scorn. "My mother knows that I am her son: that is all I cared for. That is what I came for, not for the estate."
"But, my dear, young friend," said Mr. Colquhoun, with unusual gentleness, "don't you see that if Mrs. Luttrell and Brian and Miss Murray are all convinced that you are Mrs. Luttrell's son, you are doing them a wrong by destroying the proofs and leaving everybody in an unsettled state? You should never have come to Scotland at all if you did not mean to carry the matter through."
"That's what I say," cried Mr. Brett, who was working himself up into a violent passion. "He has played fast and loose with all us! He has tricked and cheated me. Why, he had a splendid case! And to think that it can be set aside in this way!"
"Very informal," said Mr. Colquhoun, shaking his head, but with a little gleam of laughter in his eye. If Dino Vasari had told the truth, the matter had taken a fortunate turn in Mr. Colquhoun's opinion.
"Scandalous! scandalous!" exclaimed Mr. Brett. "Actionable, I call it. You had no right to make away with those papers, sir. However, it may be possible to repair the loss. They were not all there."
"I will not have it," said Dino, decisively. "Nothing more shall be done. I waive my claims entirely. Brian and Miss Murray can settle the rest."
And then the party broke up. Mr. Brett seized his client by the arm and bore him away to the hotel, arguing and scolding as he went. Before his departure, however, Dino found time to say a word in Mr. Colquhoun's ear.
"Will you kindly look after Hugo to-night?" he said. "Mrs. Luttrell will not wish him to return to Netherglen."
"Oh! There's been a quarrel, has there?" said Mr. Colquhoun eyeing the young man curiously.
After a little consideration, Dino thought himself justified in saying "Yes."
"I will see after him. You are going with Brett. You'll not have a smooth time of it."
"It will be smoother by-and-bye. You will shake hands with me, Mr. Colquhoun?"
"That I will," said the old lawyer, heartily. "And wish you God-speed, my lad. You've not been very wise, maybe, but you've been generous."
"You will have Brian home, before long, I hope."
"I hope so. I hope so. It's a difficult matter to settle," said Mr. Colquhoun, cautiously, "but I think we might see our way out of it if Brian were at home. If you want a friend, lad, come to me."
Left alone with Hugo, the solicitor took his place once more at the table, and hastily drank off a glass of wine, then glanced at his silent guest with a queerly-questioning look.
"What's wrong with ye, lad?" he said. "Cheer up, and drink a glass of good port wine. Your aunt has quarrelled with many people before you, and she'll like enough come to her senses in course of time."
"Did he say I had quarrelled with my aunt?" asked Hugo, in a dazed sort of way.
"Well, he said as much. He said there had been a quarrel. He asked me to keep an eye on you. Why, Hugo, my man, what's the matter?"
For Hugo, utterly careless of the old man's presence, suddenly laid his aims on the table, and his head on his arms, and burst into passionate hysterical tears.
"Tut, tut, tut, man! this will never do," said Mr. Colquhoun, rebukingly. "You're not a girl, nor a child, to cry for a sharp word or two. What's wrong?"
But he got no answer. Not even when Hugo, spent and exhausted with the violence of his emotion, lifted up his face and asked hoarsely for brandy. Mr. Colquhoun gave him what he required, without asking further questions, and tried to induce him to take some solid food; but Hugo absolutely refused to swallow anything but a stiff glass of brandy and water, and allowed himself to be conducted to a bed-room, where he flung himself face downwards on the bed, and preserved a sullen silence.
Mr. Colquhoun did not press him to speak. "I'll hear it all from Margaret Luttrell to-morrow morning," he said to himself. "My mind misgives me that there have been strange doings up at Netherglen to-night. But I'll know to-morrow."
It was at that very moment that Angela Vivian, going into the dressing-room, found a motionless, silent figure, sitting upright in the wheeled arm-chair, a figure, not lifeless, indeed, but with life apparent only in the agonised glance of the restless eyes, which seemed to plead for help. But no help could be given to her now. No more hard words could fall from those stricken lips: no more bitter sentences be written by those nerveless fingers. She might live for years, if dragging on a mute, maimed existence could be, indeed, called living; but, as far as power over the destiny of others, of doing good or harm to her loved ones, was concerned, Margaret Luttrell was practically dead!
Mr. Colquhoun heard the news of Mrs. Luttrell's seizure on the following morning, and made good use of it as a reproach to Dino in the conversation that he had with him. But Dino, although deeply grieved at the turn which things had taken, stood firm. He would have nothing to do with the Strathleckie or the Luttrell properties. Whereupon, Mr. Colquhoun went straight to Miss Murray, and told her, to the best of his ability, the long and intricate story. Be it observed that, although Mr. Colquhoun knew that Brian was living, and that he had lately been in England, he did not know of Brian's appearance at Strathleckie under the name of Stretton, and was, therefore, unable to give Elizabeth any information on this point.
Elizabeth was imperative in her decision.
"At any rate," she said, "the property cannot belong to me. It must belong either to Mr. Luttrell or to Mr. Vasari. I have no right to it."
"Possession is nine points of the law, my dear," said the lawyer. "Nobody can turn you out until Brian comes home again. It may be all a mistake."
"You don't think it a mistake, Mr. Colquhoun?"
Mr. Colquhoun smiled, pursed up his lips, and gave his head a little shake, as much as to say that he was not going to be tricked into any expression of his private opinions.
"The thing will be to get Mr. Brian Luttrell back," said Elizabeth.
"Not such an easy thing as it seems, I am afraid, Miss Murray. The lad, Dino Vasari, or whatever his name is, tried hard to keep him, but failed. He is an honest lad, I believe, this Dino, but he's an awful fool, you know, begging your pardon. If he wanted to keep Brian in England, why couldn't he write to me?"
"Perhaps he did not know of your friendship for Brian," said Elizabeth, smiling.
"Then he knew very little of Brian's life and Brian's friends, my dear, and, according to his own account, he knew a good deal. Of course, he is a foreigner, and we must make allowances for him, especially as he was brought up in a monastery, where I don't suppose they learn much about the forms of ordinary life. What puzzles me is the stupidity of one or two other people, who might have let me know in time, if they had had their wits about them. I've a crow to pluck with your Mr. Heron on that ground," concluded Mr. Colquhoun, never dreaming that he was making mischief by his communication.
Elizabeth started forward. "Percival!" she said, contracting her brows and looking at Mr. Colquhoun earnestly. "You don't mean that Percival knew!"
Mr. Colquhoun perceived that he had gone too far, but could not retract his words.
"Well, my dear Miss Murray, he certainly knew something——" and then he stopped short and coughed apologetically.
"Oh," said Elizabeth, with a little extra colour in her cheeks, and the faintest possible touch of coldness, "no doubt he had his reasons for being silent; he will explain them when he comes."
"No doubt," said the lawyer, gravely; but he chuckled a little to himself over the account which Mr. Brett had given him that morning of Mr. Heron's disappointment. (Mr. Brett had thrown up the case, he told his friend Colquhoun; would have nothing more to do with it at any price. "I think the case has thrown you up," said Mr. Colquhoun, laughing slyly.)
He had taken up some papers which he had brought with him and was turning towards the door when a new thought caused him to stop, and address Elizabeth once more.
"Miss Murray," he said, "I do not wish to make a remark that would be unpleasant to you, but when I remember that Mr. Heron was in possession of the facts that I have just imparted to you, nearly a week ago, I do think, like yourself, that his conduct calls for an explanation."
"I did not say that I thought so, Mr. Colquhoun," said Elizabeth, feeling provoked. But Mr. Colquhoun was gone.
Nevertheless, she agreed with him so far that she sent off a telegram to Percival that afternoon. "Come to me at once, if possible. I want you."
When Percival received the message, which he did on his return from his club about eleven o'clock at night, he eyed the thin, pink paper on which it was written as if it had been a reptile of some poisonous kind. "I expected it," he said to himself, and all the gaiety went out of his face. "She has found something out."
It was too late to do anything that night. He felt resentfully conscious that he should not sleep if he went to bed; so he employed the midnight hours in completing some items of work which ought to be done on the following day. Before it was light he had packed a hand-bag, and departed to catch the early train. He sent a telegram from Peterborough to say that he was on the way.
Of course, it was late when he reached Strathleckie, and he assured himself with some complacency that Elizabeth would expect no conversation with him until next morning. But he was a little mistaken. In her quality of mistress, she had chosen to send everyone else to bed: the household was so well accustomed to Percival's erratic comings and goings, that nobody attached any importance to his visits; and even old Mr. Heron appeared only for a few minutes to gossip with his son while he ate a comfortable supper, retiring at last, with a nod to his niece which Percival easily understood. It meant—"I will do now what you told me you wished—leave you together to have your talk out." And Percival felt irritated by Elizabeth's determination.
"Will you smoke?" she asked, when the meal was over.
"I don't mind if I do. Will you come into the study—that's the smoking-room, is it not?—or is it too late for you?"
"It is not very late," said Elizabeth.
When they were seated in the study, Percival in a great green arm-chair, and Elizabeth opposite to him in a much smaller one, he attempted to take matters somewhat into his own hands.
"I won't ask to-night what you wanted me for," he said, easily. "I am rather battered and sleepy; we shall talk better to-morrow."
"You can set my mind at rest on one point, at any rate," rejoined Elizabeth, whose face burned with a feverish-looking flush. "It is, of course, a mistake that you knew a week ago of Brian Luttrell being in London?"
"Oh, of course," said Percival. But the irony in his voice was too plain for her to be deceived by it.
"Did you know, Percival?"
"Well, if you must have the plain truth," he said, sitting up and examining the end of his cigar with much attention, "I did."
She was silent. He raised his eyes, apparently with some effort, to her face; saw there a rather shocked and startled look, and rushed immediately into vehement speech.
"What if I did! Do you expect me to rush to you with every disturbing report I hear? I did not see this man, Brian Luttrell; I should not know him if I did—as Brian Luttrell, at any rate. I merely heard the story from a—an acquaintance of mine——"
"Dino Vasari," said Elizabeth.
"Oh, I see you know the facts. There is no need for me to say any more. Of course, you attach no weight to any reasons I might have for silence."
"Indeed, I do, Percival; or I should do, if I knew what they were."
"Can you not guess them?" he said, looking at her intently. "Can you think of no powerful motive that would make me anxious to delay the telling of the story?"
"None," she said. "None, except one that would be beneath you."
"Beneath me? Is it possible?" scoffed Percival. "No motive is too base for me, allow me to tell you, my dear child. I am the true designing villain of romance. Go on: what is the one bad motive which you attribute to me?"
"I do not attribute it to you," said Elizabeth, slowly, but with some indignation. "I never in my life believed, I never shall believe, that you cared in the least whether I was rich or poor."
Percival paused, as if he had met with an unexpected check, and then went off into a fit of rather forced laughter.
"So you never thought that," he said. "And that was the only motive that occurred to you? Then, perhaps you will kindly tell me the story as it was told to you, for you seem to have had a special edition. Has Dino Vasari been down here?"
She gave him a short account of the events that had occurred at Netherglen, and she noticed that as he listened, he forgot to smoke his cigar, and that he leaned his elbow on the arm of the great chair, and shaded his eyes with his hand. There was a certain suppressed eagerness in his manner, as he turned round when she had finished, and said, with lifted eyebrows:—
"Is that all?"
"What else do you know?" said Elizabeth.
He rubbed his hand impatiently backwards and forwards on the arm of the chair, and did not speak for a moment.
"What does Colquhoun advise you to do?" he asked, presently.
"To wait here until Brian Luttrell is found and brought home."
"Brought home. They think he will come?"
"Oh, yes. Why not? When everybody knows that he is alive there will be no possible reason why he should stay away. In fact, if he is a right-thinking man, he will see that justice requires him to come home at once."
"I should not think, myself, that he was a right-thinking man," said Percival, without looking at her.
"Because he allowed himself to be thought dead?" said Elizabeth, watching him as he relighted his cigar. "But, then, he was in such terrible trouble—and the opportunity offered itself, and seemed so easy. Poor fellow! I was always very sorry for him."
"Were you?"
"Yes. His mother, at least, Mrs. Luttrell, for I suppose she is not his mother really, must have been very cruel. From all that I have heard he was the last man to be jealous of his brother, or to wish any harm to him."
"In short, you are quite prepared to look upon him as ahéros de roman, and worship him as such when he appears. Possibly you may think there is some reason in Dino Vasari's naive suggestion that you should marry Mr. Luttrell and prevent any division of the property."
"A suggestion which, from you, Percival, is far more insulting than that of the motive which I did not attribute to you," said Elizabeth, with spirit.
"You wouldn't marry Brian Luttrell, then?"
"Percival!"
"Not under any consideration? Well, tell me so. I like to hear you say it."
Elizabeth was silent.
"Tell me so," he said, stretching out his hand to her, and looking at her attentively, "and I will tell you the reason of my week's silence."
"I have no need to tell you so," she answered, in a suppressed voice. "And if I did you would not trust me."
"No," he said, drily, "perhaps not; but promise me, all the same, that under no circumstances will you ever marry Brian Luttrell."
"I promise," she said, in a low tone of humiliation. Her eyes were full of tears. "And now let me go, Percival. I cannot stay with you—when you say that you trust me so little."
He had taken advantage of her rising to seize her hand. He now tossed his cigar into the fire, and rose, too, still holding her hand in his. He looked down at her quivering lips, her tear-filled eyes, with gathering intensity of emotion. Then he put both arms round her, pressed her to his breast with passionate vehemence, and kissed her again and again, on cheek, lip, neck, and brow. She shivered a little, but did not protest.
"There!" he said, suddenly putting her away from him, and standing erect with the black frowning line very strongly marked upon his forehead. "I will tell you now why I did not try to keep Brian Luttrell in England. I knew that I ought to make a row about it. I knew that I was bound in honour to write to Colquhoun, to you, to Mrs. Luttrell, to any of the people concerned. And I didn't do it. I didn't precisely mean not to do it, but I wanted to shift the responsibility. I thought it was other people's business to keep him in England: not mine. As a matter of fact, I suppose it was mine. What do you say?"
"Yes," said Elizabeth, lifting her lovely, grieved eyes to his stormy face. "I think it was partly yours."
"Well, I didn't do it, you see," said Percival. "I was a brute and a cad, I suppose. But it seemed fatally easy to hold one's tongue. And now he has gone to America."
"But he can be brought back again, Percival."
"If he will come. I fancy that it will take a strong rope to drag him back. You want to know the reason for my silence? It isn't far to seek. Brian Luttrell and the tutor, Stretton, who fell in love with you, were one and the same person. That's all."
And then he walked straight out of the room, and left her to her own reflections.
Percival felt a decided dread of his next meeting with Elizabeth. He could not guess what would be the effect of his information upon her mind, nor what would be her opinion of his conduct. He was in a state of exasperating uncertainty about her views. The only thing of which he was sure was her love and respect for truthfulness; he did not know whether she would ever forgive any lapse from it. "Though, if it comes to that," he said to himself, as he finished his morning toilet, "she ought to be as angry with Stretton as she is with me; for he took her in completely, and, as for me, I only held my tongue. I suppose she will say that 'the motive was everything.' Which confirms me in my belief that one man may steal a horse, while the other may not look over the wall." And then he went down to breakfast.
He was late, of course; when was he not late for breakfast? The whole family-party had assembled; even Mrs. Heron was downstairs to welcome her step-son. Percival responded curtly enough to their greetings; his eyes and ears and thoughts were too much taken up with Elizabeth to be bestowed on the rest of the family. And Elizabeth, after all, looked much as usual. Perhaps there was a little unwonted colour in her cheek, and life in her eye; she did not look as if she had not slept, or had had bad dreams; there was rather an unusually restful and calm expression upon her face.
"Confound the fellow!"—thus Percival mentally apostrophised the missing Brian Luttrell. "One would think that she was glad of what I told her." He was thoroughly put out by this reflection, and munched his breakfast in sulky silence, listening cynically to his step-mother's idle utterances and Kitty's vivacious replies. He was conscious of some disinclination to meet Elizabeth's tranquil glance, of which he bitterly resented the tranquillity. And she scarcely spoke, except to the children.
"I wonder how poor Mrs. Luttrell is to-day," Isabel Heron was saying. "It is sad that she should be so ill."
"Yes, I wondered yesterday what was the matter, when I met Hugo," said Kitty. "He looked quite pale and serious. He was staying at Dunmuir, he told me. I suppose he does not find the house comfortable while his aunt is ill."
"Rather a cold-blooded young fellow, if he can consider that," said Mr. Heron. "Mrs. Luttrell has always been very kind to him, I believe."
"Perhaps he is tired of Netherglen," said Kitty. ("Nobody knows anything about the story of the two Brian Luttrells, then!" Percival reflected, with surprise. "Elizabeth has a talent for silence when she chooses.") Kitty went on carelessly, "Netherglen is damp in this weather. I don't think I should care to live there." Then she blushed a little, as though some new thought had occurred to her.
"The weather is growing quite autumnal," said Mrs. Heron, languidly. "We ought to return to town, and make our preparations——" She looked with a sly smile from Percival to Elizabeth, and paused. "When is it to be, Lizzie?"
Elizabeth drew up her head haughtily and said nothing. Percival glanced at her, and drew no good augury from the cold offence visible in her face. There was an awkward silence, which Mrs. Heron thought it better to dispel by rising from the table.
Percival smoked his morning cigar on the terrace with his father, and wondered whether Elizabeth was not going to present herself and talk to him. He was ready to be very penitent and make every possible sign of submission to her wishes, for he felt that he had wronged her in his mind, and that she might justly be offended with him if she guessed his thoughts. He paced up and down, looking in impatiently at the windows from time to time, but still she came not. At last, standing disconsolately in the porch, he saw her passing through the hall with little Jack in her arms, and the other boys hanging on to her dress, quite in the old Gower-street fashion.
"Elizabeth, won't you come out?" he said.
"I can't, just now. I am going to give the children some lessons. I do that, first thing."
"Always?"
"Ever since Mr. Stretton left," she said.
"Give them a holiday. I want you. There are lots of things we have to talk about."
"Are there? I thought there was nothing left to say," said she, sweetly but coldly. "But I am going to Dunmuir at half-past two this afternoon, and you can drive down with me if you like."
She passed on, and shut herself into the study with the children. Percival felt injured. "She should not have brought me all the way from London if she had nothing to say," he grumbled. "I'll go back to-night. And I might as well go and see Colquhoun this morning."
He went down to Mr. Colquhoun's office, and was not received very cordially by that gentleman. The interview resulted in rather a violent quarrel, which ended by Percival being requested to leave Mr. Colquhoun's presence, and not return to it uninvited. Mr. Colquhoun could not easily forgive him for neglecting to inform the Luttrells, at the earliest opportunity, of Brian's reappearance. "We should have saved time, money, anxiety: we might have settled the matter without troubling Miss Murray, or agitating Mrs. Luttrell; and I call it downright dishonesty to have concealed a fact which was of such vital importance," said Mr. Colquhoun, who had lost his temper. And Percival flung himself out of the room in a rage.
He was still inwardly fuming when he seated himself beside Elizabeth that afternoon in a little low carriage drawn by two grey ponies—an equipage which she specially affected—in order to drive to Dunmuir. For full five minutes neither of them spoke, but at last Elizabeth said, with a faint accent of surprise:—
"I thought you had something to say to me."
"I have so many things that I don't know where to begin. Have you nothing to say—about what I told you last night?"
"I can only say that I am very glad of it."
"The deuce you are!" thought Percival, but his lips were sealed. Elizabeth went on to explain herself.
"I am glad, because now I understand various things that were very hard for me to understand before. I can see why Mr. Stretton hesitated about coming here; I see why he was startled when he discovered that I was the very girl whom he must have heard of before he left England. Of course, I should never have objected to surrender the property to its rightful owner; but in this case I shall be not only willing but pleased to give it back."
Her tone was proud and independent. Percival did not like it, but would not say so.
"I was saying last night," she continued, "that Brian Luttrell must come back. This discovery makes his return all the more necessary. I am going now to ask Mr. Colquhoun what steps had better be taken for bringing him home."
"Do you think he will come?"
"He must come. He must be made to see that it is right for him to come. I have been thinking of what I will ask Mr. Colquhoun to say to him. If he remembers me"—and her voice sank a little—"he will not refuse to do what would so greatly lighten my burden."
"Better write yourself, Elizabeth," said Percival, in a sad yet cynical tone. "You can doubtless say what would bring him back by the next steamer."
She made no answer, but set her lips a little more firmly, and gave one of the grey ponies a slight touch with the whip. It was the silence that caused Percival to see that she was wounded.
"I have a knack of saying what I don't mean," he remarked, rousing himself. "I beg your pardon for this and every other rude speech that I may make, Elizabeth; and ask you to understand that I am only translating my discontent with myself into words when I am ill-tempered. Have a little mercy on me, for pity's sake."
She smiled. He thought there was some mockery in the smile.
"What are you laughing at?" he said, abruptly, dropping the apologetic tone.
"I am not laughing. I was wondering that you thought it worth while to excuse yourself for such a trifle as a rude word or two. I thought possibly, when I came out with you, that you had other apologies to make."
"May I ask what you mean?"
"I mean that, by your own showing, you have not been quite straightforward," said Elizabeth, plainly. "And I thought that you might have something to say about it."
"Not straightforward!" he repeated. It was not often that his cheeks tingled as they tingled now. "What have I done to make you call me not straightforward, pray?"
"You knew that I inherited this property because of Brian Luttrell's death. You knew—did you not?—that he had only a few days to spend in London, and that he meant to start for America this week. You must have known that some fresh arrangement was necessary before I could honestly enjoy any of his money—that, in fact, he ought to have it all. And, unless he himself confided in you under a promise of secrecy, or anything of that sort, I think you ought to have written to Mr. Colquhoun at once."