Hugo's Sicilian mother had transmitted to him a nature at once fierce and affectionate, passionate and cunning. Half-child, half-savage, he seemed to be bound by none of the restraints that civilised men early learn to place upon their instincts. He expressed his anger, his sorrow, his love, with all the abandon that characterised the natives of those sunny shores where the first years of his life were spent. Profoundly simple in his modes of feeling, he was yet dominated by the habits of slyness and trickery which seem to be inherent in the truly savage breast. He had the savage's love of secrecy and instinctive suspicion of his fellow-creatures, the savage's swift passions and vindictiveness, the savage's innate difficulty in comprehending the laws of honour and morality. It is possible to believe that, with good training from his infancy, Hugo Luttrell might have developed into a trustworthy and straightforward man, shrinking from dishonesty and cowardice as infamy worse than death; but his early education had been of a kind likely to foster every vice that he possessed. His father, a cousin of the Luttrells of Netherglen, after marrying a lovely Palermitan, and living for three years with her in her native land, had at last tired of her transports of love and jealousy, and started upon an exploring expedition in South Africa. Hugo was brought up by a mother who adored him and taught him to loathe the English race. He was surrounded by flatterers and sycophants from his babyhood, and treated as if he were born to a kingdom. When he was twelve years old, however, his mother died; and his father, on learning her death some months afterwards, made it his business to fetch the boy away from Sicily and bring him to England. But Hugh Luttrell, the father, was already a dying man. The seeds of disease had been developed during his many journeyings; he was far gone in consumption before he even reached the English shores. His own money was nearly spent. There was a law-suit about the estates belonging to his wife's father, and it was scarcely probable that they would devolve upon Hugo, who had cousins older than himself and dearer to the Sicilian grandfather's heart. The dying man turned in his extremity to the young head of the house, Richard Luttrell, then only twenty-one years of age, and did not turn in vain. Richard Luttrell undertook the charge of the boy, and as soon as the father was laid in the grave, he took Hugo home with him to Netherglen.

Richard Luttrell could hardly have treated Hugo more generously than he did, but it must be confessed that he never liked the boy. The faults which were evident from the first day of his entrance into the Luttrells' home, were such as disgusted and repelled the somewhat austere young ruler of the household. Hugo pilfered, lied, cringed, stormed, in turn, like a veritable savage. He was sent to school, and learned the wisdom of keeping his tongue silent, and his evil deeds concealed, but he did not learn to amend his ways. In spite of his frequent misconduct, he had some qualities which endeared him to the hearts of those whom he cared to conciliate. His naÏvete, his caressing ways, his beautiful, delicate face and appealing eyes, were not without effect even upon the severest of his judges. Owing, perhaps, to these attributes rather than to any positive merit of his own, he scrambled through life at school, at a tutor's, at a military college, without any irreparable disgrace, his aptitude for getting into scrapes being equalled only by his cleverness in getting out of them. Richard, indeed, had at times received reports of his conduct which made him speak angrily and threaten condign punishment, but not until this day, when the discovery of the lost bank-notes in Hugo's possession betokened an absence of principle transcending even Richard's darkest anticipations, had any serious breach occurred between the cousins. With some men, the fact that it was the first grave offence would have had weight, and inclined them to be merciful to the offender, but Richard Luttrell was not a merciful man. When he discovered wrong-doing, he punished it with the utmost severity, and never trusted the culprit again. He had been known to say, in boasting accents, that he did not understand what forgiveness meant. Forgiveness of injuries? Weakness of mind: that was his opinion.

Hugo Luttrell's nature was also not a forgiving one. He lay upon the grass, writhing, sobbing, tearing at the ground in an access of passion equally composed of rage and shame. He had almost lost the remembrance of his own offence in resentment of its punishment. He had been struck; he had been insulted; he, a Sicilian gentleman! (Hugo never thought of himself as an Englishman.) He loathed Richard Luttrell; he muttered curses upon him as he lay on the earth, with every bone aching from his cousin's blows; he wished that he could wipe out the memory of the affront in Richard's blood. Richard would laugh at a challenge; a duel was not the English method of settling quarrels. "I will punish him in another way; it is a vendetta!" said Hugo to himself, choking down his passionate, childish sobs. "He is a brute—a great, savage brute; he does not deserve to live!"

He was too much absorbed in his reflections to notice a footstep on the grass beside him, and the rustle of a woman's dress. Some one had drawn near, and was looking pityingly, wonderingly, down upon the slight, boyish form that still shook and quivered with irrepressible emotion. A woman's voice sounded in his ear. "Hugo!" it said; "Hugo, what is the matter?"

With a start he lifted his head, showed a flushed, tear-swollen countenance for one moment, and then hid it once more in his hands. "Oh, Angela, Angela!" he cried; and then the hysterical passion mastered him once more. He could not speak for sobs.

She knelt down beside him and placed one hand soothingly upon his ruffled, black locks. For a few minutes she also did not speak. She knew that he could not hear.

The world was not wrong when it called Angela Vivian a beautiful woman, although superfine critics objected that her features were not perfect, and that her hair, her eyes, her complexion, were all too colourless for beauty. But her great charm lay in the harmonious character of her appearance. To deepen the tint of that soft, pale hair—almost ash-coloured, with a touch of gold in the heavy coils—to redden her beautifully-shaped mouth, and her narrow, oval face, to imagine those sweet, calm, grey eyes of any more definite shade would have been to make her no longer the Angela Vivian that so many people knew and loved. But if fault were found with her face, no exception could be taken to her figure and the grace with which she moved. There, at least, she was perfect.

Angela Vivian was twenty-three, and still unmarried. It was said that she had been difficult to please. But her choice was made at last. She was to be married to Richard Luttrell before the end of the year. They had been playmates in childhood, and their parents had been old friends. Angela was now visiting Mrs. Luttrell, who was proud of her son's choice, and made much of her as a guest at Netherglen.

She spoke to Hugo as a sister might have done.

"What is it, dear?" she asked him, smoothing out his short, dark curls, as she spoke. "Can't you tell me? Is it some great trouble?"

For answer he dragged himself a little closer to her, and bowed his hot forehead on one of her hands, which she was resting on the ground, while she stroked his hair with the other. The action touched her; she did not know why. His sobs were quietening. He was by no means very manly, as English people understand manliness, but even he was ashamed to be found crying like a baby over his woes.

"Dear Hugo, can you not tell me what is wrong?" said Angela, more seriously alarmed by his silence than by his tears. She had a right to question him, for he had previously given her as much of his confidence as he ever gave to anybody, and she had been a very good friend to him. "Are you in some great trouble?"

"Yes," he said, in a voice so choked that she could hardly hear the word.

"And you have been in some scuffle surely. Your clothes are torn—you are hurt!" said she, sympathetically. "Why, Hugo, you must have been fighting!" Then, as he gave her no answer, she resumed in a voice of tender concern, "You are not really hurt, are you, dear boy? You can move—you can get up? Shall I fetch anyone to help you?"

"No, no, no!" he cried, clutching at her dress, as though to stay her going. "Don't leave me. I am not hurt—at least, I can walk and stand easily enough, though I have been hurt—set upon, and treated like—like a dog by him——"

"By whom, Hugo?" said Angela, startled by the tenor of his incoherent sentences. "Who has set upon you and ill-treated you?"

But Hugo hid his face. "I won't tell you," he said, sullenly.

There was a silence. "Can I do anything for you?" Angela asked at length, very gently.

"No."

She waited a little longer, and, as he made no further sign, she tried to rise. "Shall I go, Hugo?" she said.

"Yes—if you like." Then he burst out passionately, "Of course, you will go. You are like everybody else. You are like Richard Luttrell. You will do what he tells you. I am abandoned by everybody. You all hate me; and I hate you all!"

Little as Angela understood his words, there was something in them that made her seat herself beside him on the grass, instead of leaving him alone. "Dear Hugo," she said, "I have never hated you."

"But you will soon."

"I see," said she, softly. "I understand you now. You are in trouble—you have been doing something wrong, and you think that we shall be angry with you. Listen, Hugo, Richard maybe angry at first, but he is kind as well as just. He will forgive you, and we shall love you as much as ever. I will tell him that you are sorry for whatever it is, and then he will not refuse his pardon."

"I don't want it," said Hugo, hoarsely. "I hate him."

"Hugo!"

"I hate him—I loathe him. You would hate him, too, if you knew him as well as I do. You are going to marry him! Well, you will be miserable all your life long, and then you will remember what I say."

"I should be angry with you if I did not know how little you meant this," said Angela, in an unruffled voice, although the faint colour had risen to her cheeks, and her eyes looked feverishly bright. "But you are not like yourself, Hugo; you are distressed about something. You know, at least, that we do not hate you, and you do not hate us."

"I do not hate you," said Hugo, with emphasis.

He seized a fold of her dress and pressed it to his lips. But he said nothing more, and by-and-bye, when she gently disengaged her gown from his hold, he made no opposition to her going. She left him with reluctance, but she knew that Mrs. Luttrell would want her at that hour, and did not like to be kept waiting. She glanced back when she reached the bend in the road that would hide him from her sight. She saw that he had resumed his former position, with his head bent upon his arms, and his face hidden.

"Poor Hugo!" she said to herself, as she turned towards the house.

Netherglen was a quaint-looking, irregular building of grey, stone, not very large, but considerably larger than its appearance led one to conjecture, from the fact that a wing had been added at the back of the house, where it was not immediately apparent. The peculiarity of this wing was that, although built close to the house, it did not actually touch it except at certain points where communication with the main part was necessary; the rooms on the outer wing ran parallel for some distance with those in the house, but were separated by an interval of one or two feet. This was a precaution taken, it was said, in order to deaden the noise made by the children when they were in the nurseries situated in this part of the house. It had certainly been an effectual one; it was difficult to hear any sound proceeding from these rooms, even when one stood in the large central hall from which the sitting-rooms opened.

Angela was anxious to find Richard and ascertain whether or not he was really seriously incensed against his cousin, but he was not to be found. A party of guests had arrived unexpectedly for luncheon; Mrs. Luttrell and Brian were both busily engaged in entertaining them. Angela glanced at Brian; it struck her that he was not in his usual good spirits. But she had no chance of asking him if anything were amiss.

The master of the house arrived in time to take his place at the head of the table, and from the moment of his arrival, Angela was certain that he had been, if he were not still, seriously annoyed by some occurrence of the day. She knew his face very well, and she knew the meaning of the gleam of his eye underneath the lowered eyebrows, the twitching nostril, and the grim setting of his mouth. He spoke very little, and did not smile even when he glanced at her. These were ominous signs.

"Where is Hugo?" demanded Mrs. Luttrell as they seated themselves at the table. "Have you seen him, Brian?"

"Yes, I saw him down by the loch this morning," said Brian, but without raising his eyes.

"The bell had better be rung outside the house," said Mrs. Luttrell. "It can be heard quite well on the loch."

"It is unnecessary, mother," said Richard, promptly. "Hugo is not coming in to lunch."

There was a momentary flash of his eye as he spoke, which convinced Angela that Hugo's disgrace was to be no transient one. Her heart sank; she did not find that Richard's wrath was easy to appease when once thoroughly aroused. Again she looked at Brian, and it seemed to her that his face was paler and more sombre than she had ever seen it before.

The brothers were usually on such pleasant terms that their silence to each other during the meal became a matter of remark to others beside Angela and Mrs. Luttrell. Had they quarrelled? There was an evident coolness between them; for, on the only occasion on which they addressed each other, Richard contemptuously contradicted his brother with insulting directness, and Brian replied with what for him was decided warmth. But the matter dropped—perhaps each was ashamed of having manifested his annoyance in public—and only their silence to each other betrayed that anything was wrong.

The party separated into three portions after luncheon. Mrs. Luttrell and a lady of her own age agreed to remain indoors, or to stroll quietly round the garden. Angela and two or three other young people meant to get out the boat and fish the loch for pike. Richard and a couple of his friends were going to shoot in the neighbouring woods. And, while these arrangements were making, and everybody was standing about the hall, or in the wide porch which opened out into the garden, Hugo's name was again mentioned.

"What has become of that boy?" said Mrs. Luttrell. "He is not generally so late. Richard, do you know?"

"I'll tell you afterwards, mother," answered her son, in a low tone. "Don't say anything more about him just now."

"Is there anything wrong?" said his mother, also lowering her voice. But he had turned away.

"Brian, what is it?" she asked, impatiently.

"For Heaven's sake, don't ask Brian," said Richard, looking back over his shoulder, "there is no knowing what he may not require you to believe. Leave the story to me."

"I've no desire to tell it," replied Brian, moving away.

Luttrell's friends were already outside the hall door, lighting their cigars and playing with the dogs. A keeper stood in the background, waiting until the party should start.

"Aren't you coming, Brian?" said one of the young men.

"I'll join you presently," said Brian. "I am going down to the loch first to get out the boat."

"What a splendid gun that is of yours!" said Archie Grant, the younger of the two men. "It is yours, is it not? I saw it in the corner of the hall as I came in. You had it the other day at the Duke's."

"It was not mine. It belongs to Hugo."

"Let me have a look at it again; it's an awfully fine one."

"Are you ready, Grant?" said Richard Luttrell, coming forward. "What are you looking for?"

"Oh, nothing; a gun," said the young fellow. "I see it's gone. I thought it was there when I first came in; it's of no consequence."

"Not your own gun, I suppose?"

"No, no; I have my own. It was Hugo's."

"Yes; rather a fine one," said Richard, indifferently. "You're not coming, then?"—to Brian—"well, perhaps it's as well." And he marched away without deigning to bestow another look or word upon his brother.

Five minutes afterwards, Mrs. Luttrell and Angela encountered each other in a passage leading to one of the upper rooms. No one was near. Mrs. Luttrell—she was a tall, handsome woman, strikingly like Richard, in spite of her snow-white hair—laid her hand gently on Angela's shoulder.

"Why do you look so pale, Angela?" she said. "Your eyes are red, child. Have you been crying because those ill-bred lads of mine could not keep a still tongue in their heads at the luncheon-table, but must needs wrangle together as they used to when they were just babies? Never you mind, my dear; it's not Richard's fault, and Brian was always a troublesome lad. It will be better for us all when he's away at his books in London."

She patted Angela's shoulder and passed on, leaving the girl more vexed than comforted. She was sorry to see Mrs. Luttrell show the partiality for Richard which everyone accused her of feeling. In the mother's eyes, Richard was always right and Brian wrong. Angela was just enough to be troubled at times by this difference in the treatment of the brothers.

Brian went down to the loch ostensibly to get out the boat. In reality he wanted to see whether Hugo was still there. Richard had told him of the punishment to which he had subjected the lad; and Brian had been frankly indignant about it. The two had come to high words; thus there had, indeed, been some foundation for the visitors' suspicions of a previous quarrel.

Hugo had disappeared; only the broken brushwood and the crushed bracken told of the struggle that had taken place, and of the boy's agony of grief and rage. Brian resolved to follow and find him. He did not like the thought of leaving him to bear his shame alone. Besides, he understood Hugo's nature, and he was afraid—though he scarcely knew what he feared.

But he searched in vain. Hugo was not to be found. He did not seem to have quitted the place altogether, for he had given no orders about his luggage, nor been seen on the road to the nearest town, and Brian knew that it would be almost impossible to find him in a short space of time if he did not wish to be discovered. It was possible that he had gone into the woods; he was as fond of them as a wild animal of his lair. Brian took his gun from the rack, as an excuse for an expedition, then sallied forth, scarcely hoping, however, to be successful in his search.

He had not gone very far when he saw a man's form at some little distance from him, amongst the trees. He stopped short and reconnoitered. No, it was not Hugo. That brown shooting-coat and those stalwart limbs belonged rather to Richard Luttrell. Brian looked, shrugged his shoulders to himself, and then turned back. He did not want to meet his brother then.

But Richard had heard the footstep and glanced round. After a moment of evident hesitation, he quitted his position and tramped over the soft, uneven ground to his brother, who, seeing that he had been observed, awaited his brother's coming with some uncertainty of feeling.

Richard's face had wonderfully cleared since the morning, and his voice was almost cordial.

"You've come? That's right," he said.

"Got anything?"

"Nothing much. I never saw young Grant shoot so wild. And my hand's not very steady—after this morning's work." He laughed a little awkwardly and looked away. "That fellow deserved all he got, Brian. But if you choose to see him now and then and be friendly with him, it's your own look out. I don't wish to interfere."

It was a great concession from Richard—almost as much as an apology. Brian involuntarily put out his hand, which Richard grasped heartily if roughly. Neither of them found it necessary to say more. The mutual understanding was complete, and each hastily changed the subject, as though desirous that nothing farther should be said about it.

If only some one had been by to witness that tacit reconciliation!