"It is to be understood," said Percival, two or three days later, with an affectation of great precision, "that I surrender none of my rights by going on this wild-goose chase. I shall come back in a few months' time to claim my bride."

Elizabeth smiled rather sadly. "Very well," she said.

"In fact," Percival went on expansively, "I shall expect the wedding to be arranged for the day after my arrival, whenever that takes place. So get your white gown and lace veil ready, and we will have Brian Luttrell as best man, and Dino Vasari to give you away."

It was rather cruel jesting, thought Elizabeth; but then Percival was in the habit, when he was in a good humour, of turning his deepest feelings into jest. The submission with which she listened to him, roused him after a time to a perception that his words were somewhat painful to her; and he relapsed into a silence which he broke by saying in an entirely different sort of voice:—

"Have you no message for Brian Luttrell, Elizabeth?"

"You know all that I want to say."

"But is there nothing else? No special message of remembrance and friendship?"

"Tell him," said Elizabeth, flushing and then paling again, "that I shall not be happy until he comes back and takes what is his own."

"Well, I can't say anything much stronger," said Percival, drily. "I will remember."

They talked no more about themselves, until the day on which he was to start, and then, when he was about to take his leave of her, he said, in a very low voice:—

"Do you mean to be true to me or not when Luttrell comes home, Elizabeth?"

"I shall keep my word to you, Percival. Oh, don't—don't—say that to me again!" she cried, bursting into tears, as she saw the lurking doubt that so constantly haunted his mind.

"I won't," he said. "I will never say it again if you tell me that you trust me as I trust you."

"I do trust you."

"And I am not so base and mean as you said I was?"

For, perhaps, the first time in her life, she kissed him of her own accord. It was with this kiss burning upon his lips that Percival leaned out of the window of the railway-carriage as the train steamed away into the darkness, and waved a last farewell to the woman he loved.

He had been rather imperious and masterful during the last few days; he felt conscious of it now, and was half-sorry for it. It had seemed to him that, if he did this thing for Brian Luttrell, he had at least the right to some reward. And he claimed his reward beforehand, in the shape of close companionship and gentle words from Elizabeth. He did not compel her to kiss him—he remembered his magnanimity in that respect with some complacency—but he had demanded many other signs of good-fellowship. And she had seemed ready enough to render them. She had wanted to go with him and Mr. Heron to London, and help him to prepare for the voyage. But he would not allow her to leave Strathleckie. He had only a couple of days to spare, and he should be hurried and busy. He preferred saying good-bye to her at Dunmuir.

The reason of his going was kept a profound secret from all the Herons except the father, who gave his consent to the plan cordially, though with some surprise.

"But what will become of your profession?" he had asked of Percival. "Won't three or four months' absence put you sadly out of the running?"

"You forget my prospects," Percival replied, with his ready, cynical laugh. "When I've squared the matter with Brian Luttrell, and married Elizabeth, I shall have no need to think of my profession." Mr. Heron shifted his eye-glasses on his nose uneasily, and screwed up his face into an expression of mild disapproval, but couldn't think of any suitable reply. "Besides," said Percival, "I've got a commission to do some papers on Brazilian life. The Evening Mail will take them. And I am going to write a book on 'Modern Morality' as I go out. I fully expect to make my literary work pay my travelling expenses, sir."

"I thought Elizabeth paid those," said Mr. Heron, in a hesitating sort of way.

"Well, she thinks she will do so," said Percival, "and that's all she need know about the matter."

Mr. Colquhoun, to whom Elizabeth had gone for advice on the day after Percival's proposition, was very cautious in what he said to her. "It's the best plan in the world," he remarked, "in one way."

"In what way?" asked Elizabeth, anxiously.

"Well, Mr. Heron goes as your affianced husband, does he not? Of course, he can represent your interests better than anybody else."

"I thought he was going to prevent my interests from being too well represented," said Elizabeth, half-smiling. "I want him to make Mr. Luttrell understand that I have no desire to keep the property at all."

"There is one drawback," said Mr. Colquhoun, "and one that I don't see how Mr. Heron will get over. He has never seen Brian, has he? How will he recognise him? For the lad's probably gone under another name. It's just a wild-goose chase that he's starting upon, I'm afraid."

"They have seen each other."

"Mr. Heron didn't tell me that. And where was it they saw each other, Miss Murray?"

"In Italy—and here. Here at Strathleckie. Oh, Mr. Colquhoun, it was Brian Luttrell who came with us as the boys' tutor, and we did not know. He called himself Stretton." And then Elizabeth shed a small tear or two, although she did not exactly know why.

Mr. Colquhoun's wrath and astonishment were not to be described. That Brian should have been so near him, and that they should have never met! "I should have known him anywhere!" cried the old man. "Grey hair! do you tell me? What difference does that make to a man that knew him all his life, and his father before him? And a beard, you say? Toots! beard or no beard, I should have known Brian Luttrell anywhere."

Angela Vivian, being taken into their confidence, supplied them with several photographs of Brian in his earlier days. And Percival was admitted to Netherglen to look at a portrait of the brothers (or reputed brothers), painted not long before Richard's death. He looked at it long and carefully, but acknowledged afterwards that he could not see any likeness between his memories of Mr. Stretton and the pictured face, with its fine contour, brown moustache, and smiling eyes, a face in which an expression of slight melancholy seemed to be the index to intense susceptibility of temperament and great refinement of mind. "The eyes are like Stretton's," he said, "and that is all." He took two of the photographs with him, however, as part of his equipment.

Mrs. Luttrell continued in the state in which she had been found after her interview with Dino. She could not speak: she could not move: her eyes had an awful consciousness in them which told that she was living and knew what was going on around her: otherwise she might easily have been mistaken for one already dead. It was difficult to imagine that she understood the words spoken in her presence, and for some time her attendants did not realise this fact, and spoke with less caution than they might have done respecting the affairs of the neighbourhood. But when the doctor had declared that her mind was unimpaired, Mr. Colquhoun thought it better to come and give her some account of the things that had been done during her illness, on the mere chance that she might hear and understand. He told her that Dino had gone to Italy, that Brian had sailed for South America, and that Percival Heron had gone to fetch him back, in order to make some arrangement about the property which Elizabeth Murray wished to give up to him. He thought that there was a look of relief in her eyes when he had finished; but he could not be sure.

Hugo, after staying for some days at the hotel in Dunmuir, ventured rather timidly back to Netherglen. Now that Dino was out of the way, he did not see why he should not make use of his opportunities. He entered the door of his old home, it was true, with a sort of superstitious terror upon him: Dino had obtained a remarkable power over his mind, and if he had been either in England or Scotland, Hugo would never have dared to present himself at Netherglen. But his acquaintances and friends—even Angela—thought his absence so strange, that he was encouraged to pay a call at his aunt's house, and when there, he was led, almost against his will, straight into her presence. He had heard that she could not speak or move; but he was hardly prepared for the spectacle of complete helplessness that met his gaze. There might be dread and loathing in the eyes that looked at him out of that impassive face; but there was no possibility of the utterance by word of mouth. An eternal silence seemed to have fallen upon Margaret Luttrell: her bitterest enemy might come and go before her, and against none of his devices could she protect herself.

While looking at her, a thought flashed across Hugo's mind, and matured itself later in the day into a complete plan of action. He remembered the will that Mrs. Luttrell had made in his favour. Had that will ever been signed? By the curious brusqueness with which Mr. Colquhoun had lately treated him, he fancied that it had. If it was signed, he was the heir; he would be the master ultimately of Netherglen. Why should he go away? Dino Vasari had ordered him never to come again into Mrs. Luttrell's presence; but Dino Vasari was now shut up in some Italian monastery, and was not likely to hear very much about the affairs of a remote country-house in Scotland. At any rate, when Mrs. Luttrell was dead, even Dino could not object to Hugo's taking possession of his own house. When Mrs. Luttrell was dead! And when would she die?

The doctor, whom Hugo consulted with great professions of affection for his aunt, gave little hope of long life for her. He wondered, he said, that she had survived the stroke that deprived her of speech and the use of her limbs: a few weeks or months, in his opinion, would see the end.

Hugo considered the situation very seriously. It would be better for him to stay at Netherglen, where he could ascertain his aunt's condition from time to time, and be sure that there were no signs of returning speech and muscular power. Dared he risk disobedience to Dino's command? On deliberation, he thought he dare. Dino could prove nothing against him: it would be assertion against assertion, that was all. And most people would look on the accusations that Dino would bring as positive slander. Hugo felt that his greatest danger lay in his own cowardice—his absence of self-control and superstitious fear of Dino's eye. But if the young monk were out of England there was no present reason to be afraid. And when such a piece of luck had occurred as Mrs. Luttrell's paralytic stroke seemed likely to prove to Hugo, it would be folly to take no advantage of it. Hugo had had one or two wonderful strokes of luck in his life; but he told himself that this was the greatest of all. He was rather inclined to attribute it to his possession of a medal which had been blessed by the Pope (for, as far as he had any religion at all, Hugo was still a Romanist), which his mother had hung round his neck whilst he was a chubby-faced boy in Sicily. He wore it still, and was not at all above considering it as a charm for ensuring him a larger slice of good fortune than would otherwise have fallen to his share. And, therefore, in a few days after Mrs. Luttrell's seizure, Hugo was once again at Netherglen, ruling even more openly and imperiously than he had done in the days of his aunt's health and strength. His presence there, and Mrs. Luttrell's helplessness, caused some of Angela Vivian's friends to object seriously to her continued residence at Netherglen. She was still a young woman of considerable beauty; and Hugo was two-and-twenty. Of what use could she be to Mrs. Luttrell? She ought, at any rate, to have an older friend to chaperone her, to be with her in her walks and drives, and be present at the meals which she and Hugo now shared alone. Angela took little notice of the remonstrance of aunts and cousins, but when she heard that her brother Rupert was coming to stay at the Herons, and proposed to spend a day or two at Netherglen on his way thither, she felt a qualm of fear. Rupert was very careful of his sister: she felt sure that she would never be permitted to do what he thought in the least degree unbecoming.

Meanwhile, the man who had resolved to be known as Dino Vasari for his lifetime—or at least until he laid down his name, together with his will, his affections, and all his other possessions at the door of the religious house which he desired to enter, was hastening towards his old home, his birthplace, (whether he was Dino Vasari or Brian Luttrell) under sunny Italian skies. He did not quite dare to think how he should be received. He had thwarted the plans of the far-seeing monks: he had made their anxious efforts for his welfare of no avail. He had thrown away the chance of an inheritance which might have been used for the benefit of his Church: would the rulers of that Church easily forgive him?

He reached San Stefano at night, and took up his quarters at the inn, whence he wrote a letter to the Prior, asking to be allowed to see him, and hinting at his wish to enter the monastery for life. Perhaps the humility of the tone of his epistle made Father Cristoforo suspect that something was wrong. To begin with, Dino was not supposed to act without the advice of those who had hitherto been his guardians, and he had committed an act of grave insubordination in leaving England without their permission. The priest to whom he had reported himself on his arrival in London, had already complained to Father Cristoforo of the young man's self-reliant spirit, and a further letter had given some account of "very unsatisfactory proceedings" on Dino's part—of a refusal to tell where he had been or what he had been doing, and, finally, of his sudden and unauthorised departure from British shores. This letter had not tended to put Father Cristoforo into charity with his late pupil—child of the house, as, in a certain sense, he had been for many years, and special pet and favourite with the Prior—he was rather inclined to order Dino back to England without loss of time. Padre Cristoforo set a high value upon that inheritance in Scotland. He wished to secure it for Dino—still more for the Church.

He sent back a curt verbal answer. Dino might come to the cloisters on the following morning after early mass. The Prior would meet him there as he came from the monastery chapel.

Dino was waiting at the appointed hour. In spite of the displeasure implied in Padre Cristoforo's message, his heart was swelling with delight at the sight of the well-known Italian hills, at the sunshine and the sweet scents that came to him with the crystal clearness of the Italian atmosphere. He loved the white walls of the monastery, the vine-clad slopes and olive groves around it, the glimpses of purple sea which one caught from time to time in the openings left in the chestnut-woods, where he had wandered so often when he was a boy. These things were dear to Dino: he had loved them all his life, and it was a veritable home-coming to him when he presented himself at San Stefano.

And yet the home-coming would not be without its peculiar trials. Never once had Father Cristoforo been seriously angry with him, and the habit of obedience, of almost filial reverence, reviving in Dino's heart as he approached the monastery precincts, made him think with some awe of the severity which the Prior's face had sometimes shown to impenitent culprits. Was he impenitent? He did not know. Was he afraid? No, Dino assured himself, looking up to the purple mountains and the cloudless sky, with a grave smile of recognition and profound content, he was afraid of nothing now.

He waited until the service was over. The peal of the organ, the sound of the monks' chant, reached him where he stood, but he did not enter the little chapel. A sense of unworthiness came over him. As the short, sharp stroke of the bell smote upon his ear, he fell upon his knees, and rested his forehead against the wall. Old words of prayer rose familiarly to his lips. He remembered his sins of omission and commission—venial faults they would seem, to many of us, but black and heinous in pure-hearted Dino's eyes—and pleaded passionately for their forgiveness. And then the words turned into a prayer for the welfare of his friend Brian and the woman that Brian loved. Dino was one of those rare souls who love their neighbour better than themselves.

The Prior quitted the chapel at last, and approached his former pupil. He did not come alone, but the brothers who followed him kept at some little distance. Some of the other occupants of the monastery—monks, lay-brothers, pupils—occasionally passed by, but they did not even lift their eyes. Still, there was a certain sense of publicity about the interview which made Dino feel that he was not to be welcomed—only judged.

Father Cristoforo's face was terrible in its very impassiveness. There was no trace of emotion in those rigidly-set features and piercing eyes. He looked at Dino for some minutes before he spoke. The young man retained his kneeling posture until the Prior said, briefly—

"Rise."

Dino stood up immediately, with folded arms and bowed head. It was not his part to speak till he was questioned.

"You left England without permission," said the Prior in a dry tone, rather of assertion than of inquiry.

"Reverend Father, yes."

"Why?"

"There was no reason for me to stay in England. The estate is not mine."

"Who says it is not?"

"Reverend Father, I cannot take it away from those to whom it now belongs," said Dino, faltering, and growing red and white by turns.

The Prior looked at him with an examining eye. In spite of his apparent coldness, he was shocked by the change that he perceived in his old pupil's bearing and appearance. The finely-cut face was wasted; there were hollows in the temples and the cheeks, the dew of perspiration upon the forehead marked physical weakness as well as agitation. There was more kindness in the Prior's manner as he said:—

"You felt, perhaps, the need of rest? The English winds are keen. You came to recruit yourself before going back to fight your cause in a court of law? You wanted help and counsel?"

Dino's head sank lower upon his breast: he breathed quickly, and did not speak.

"Had you not proof sufficient? I sent all necessary papers by a trusty messenger. You received them?"

"Yes." Dino's voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper.

"You have them with you?"

Dino flashed one look of appeal into the Prior's face, and then sank on his knees. "Father," he said, desperately, "I have not done as you commanded me. I could not fight this cause. I could not turn them out of their inheritance—their home. I destroyed all the papers. There is no proof left."

In spite of his self-possession the Prior started. Of this contingency he had certainly never thought. He came a step nearer to the young man, and spoke with astonished urgency.

"You destroyed the proofs? You? Every one of them?"

"Every one."

A sudden white change passed over Padre Cristoforo's face. His lips locked themselves together until they looked like a single line; his eyes flashed ominously beneath his heavy brows. In his anger he did, as he was privileged to do to any inferior member of his community, forgetting that Dino Vasari, with his five-and-twenty years, had passed from under his control, and was free to resent an offered indignity. But Dino had laid himself open to rebuke by adopting the tone of a penitent. Thence it came that the Prior lifted his hand and struck him, as he sometimes struck an offending novice—struck him sharply across the face. Dino turned scarlet, and then white as death; he sank a little lower, and crushed his thin fingers more closely together, but he did not speak. For a moment there was silence. The waiting monks, the passing pupils who saw the blow given and received, wondered what had been the offence of one who used to be considered the brightest ornament of the monastic school, the pride and glory of his teachers. His fault must be grave, indeed, if it could move the Prior to such wrath.

Padre Cristoforo stood with his hand lifted as if he meant to repeat the blow; then it fell slowly to his side. He gathered his loose, black robe round him, as though he would not let his skirts touch the kneeling figure before him—the scorn of his gesture was unmistakable—and hastily turned away. As he went, Dino fell on his face on the marble pavement, crushed by the silence rather than the blow. Monks and pupils, following the Prior, passed their old companion, and did not dare to speak a word of greeting.

But Dino would not move. A wave of religious fervour, of passionate yearning for the old devotional life, had come across him. He might die on the pavement of the cloister; he would not be sorry even to die and have done with the manifold perplexities of life; but he would not rise until the Prior—the only father and protector that he had ever known—bade him rise. And so he lay, while the noon-day sunlight waxed and waned, and the drowsy afternoon declined to dewy eve, and the purple twilight faded into night. If the hours seemed long or short, he could not tell. A sort of stupor came over him. He knew not what was going on around him; dimly he heard feet and voices, and the sound of bells and music, but which of the sounds came to him in dreams, and which were realities, he could not tell. It was certainly a dream that Brian and Elizabeth stood beside him hand-in-hand, and told him to take courage. That, as he knew afterwards, was quite too impossible to be true. But it was a dream that brought him peace.