"Pah! why will people write such abominable stuff?" said Percival.

"Reach me down that volume of Bacon's Essays behind you; I must have something to take the taste out of my mouth before I begin to write."

Vivian handed him the book, and watched him with some interest as he read. The frown died away from his forehead, and the mouth gradually assumed a gentler expression before he had turned the first page. In five minutes he was so much absorbed that he did not hear the question which Vivian addressed to him.

"What position," said Rupert, deliberately, "does Miss Murray hold in your father's house?"

"Eh? What? What position?" Away went Percival's book to the floor; he raised himself in his chair, and began to light his pipe, which had gone out. "What do you mean?" he said.

"Is she a ward of your father's? Is she a relation of yours?"

"Yes, of course, she is," said Percival, rather resentfully. "She is a cousin. Let me see. Her father, Gordon Murray, was my mother's brother.

She is my first cousin. And Cinderella in general to the household," he added, grimly.

"Oh, Gordon Murray was her father? So I supposed. Then if poor Richard Luttrell had not died I suppose she would have been a sort of connection of my sister's. I remember Angela wondered whether Gordon Murray had left any family."

"Why?"

"Why? You know the degree of relationship and the terms of the will made by Mrs. Luttrell's father, don't you?"

"Not I."

"Gordon Murray--this Miss Murray's father--was next heir after the two Luttrells, if they died childless. Of course, Brian is still living; but if he died, Miss Murray would inherit, I understand."

"There's not much chance," said Percival, lightly.

"Not much," responded Vivian.

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. The landlady, with many apologies, brought them a telegram which had been left at the house during their absence, and which she had forgotten to deliver. It was addressed to Vivian, who tore it open, read it twice, and then passed it on to Percival without a word.

It was from Angela Vivian, and contained these words only--

"Brian Luttrell is dead."

CHAPTER X.

BROTHER DINO.

When Brian Luttrell left England he had no very clear idea of the places that he meant to visit, or the things that he wished to do. He wished only to leave old associations behind him--to forget, and, if possible to be forgotten.

He was conscious of a curious lack of interest in life; it seemed to him as though the very springs of his being were dried up at their source.

As a matter of fact, he was thoroughly out of health, as well as out of spirits; he had been over-working himself in London, and was scarcely out of the doctor's hands before he went to Scotland; then the shock of his brother's death and the harshness of his mother toward him had contributed their share to the utter disorganisation of his faculties.

In short, Brian was not himself at all; it might even be said that he was out of his right mind. He had attacks of headache, generally terminating in a kind of stupor rather than sleep, during which he could scarcely be held responsible for the things he said or did. At other times, a feverish restlessness came upon him; he could not sleep, and he could not eat; he would then go out and walk for miles and miles, until he was thoroughly exhausted. It was a wonder that his mind did not give way altogether. His sanity hung upon a thread.

It was in this state that he found himself one day upon a Rhine boat, bound for Mainz. He had a very vague notion of how he had managed to get there; he had no notion at all of his reason for travelling in that direction. It dawned upon him by degrees that he had chosen the very same route, and made the same stoppages, as he had done when he was a mere boy, travelling with his father upon the Continent. Richard and his mother had not been there; Brian and Mr. Luttrell had spent a particularly happy time together, and the remembrance of it soothed his troubled brain, and caused his eye to rest with a sort of dreamy pleasure upon the scene around him.

It was rather late for a Rhine expedition, and the boat was not at all full. Brian rather thought that the journey with his father had been taken at about the same time of the year--perhaps even a little later.

He had a special memory of the wealth of Virginian creeper which covered the buildings near Coblentz. He looked out for it when the boat stopped at the landing-stage, and thought of the time when he had wandered hand-in-hand with his father in the pleasant Anlagen on the river banks, and gathered a scarlet trail of leaves from the castle walls. The leaves were in their full autumnal glory now; he must have been there at about the same season when he was a boy.

After determining this fact to his satisfaction, Brian went back to the seat that he had found for himself at the end of the boat, and began once more to watch the gliding panorama of "castled crag" and vine-clad slope, which was hardly as familiar to him as it is to most of us. But, after all, Drachenfels and Ehrenbreitstein had no great interest for him. He had no great interest in anything. Perhaps the little excitement and bustle at the landing-places pleased him more than the scenery itself--the peasants shouting to each other from the banks, the baskets of grapes handed in one after another, the patient oxen waiting in the roads between the shafts; these were sights which made no great claim upon his attention and were curiously soothing to his jaded nerves. He watched them languidly, but was not sorry from time to time to close his eyes and shut out his surroundings altogether.

The worst of it was, that when he had closed his eyes for a little time, the scene in the wood always came back to him with terrible distinctness, or else there rose up before his eyes a picture of that darkened room, with Richard's white face upon the pillow and his mother's dark form and outstretched hand. These were the memories that would not let him sleep at night or take his ease in the world by day.

He could not forget the past.

There was another passenger on the boat who passed and repassed Brian several times, and looked at him with curious attention. Brian's face was one which was always apt to excite interest. It had grown thin and pallid during the past fortnight; the eyes were set in deep hollows, and wore a painfully sad expression. He looked as if he had passed through some period of illness or sorrow of which the traces could never be wholly obliterated. There was a pathetic hopelessness in his face which was somewhat remarkable in so young a man.

The passenger who regarded him with so much interest was also a young man, not more than Brian's own age, but apparently not an Englishman. He spoke English a little, though with a foreign accent, but his French was remarkably good and pure. He stopped short at last in front of Brian and eyed him attentively, evidently believing that the young man was asleep.

But Brian was not asleep; he knew that the regular footstep of his travelling companion had ceased, and was hardly surprised, when he opened his eyes, to find the Frenchman--if such he were--standing before him.

Brian looked at him attentively for a moment, and recognised the fact that the young foreigner wore an ecclesiastical habit, a black _soutane_ or cassock, such as is worn in Roman Catholic seminaries, not necessarily denoting that the person who wears it has taken priest's vows upon him. Brian was not sufficiently well versed in the subject to know what grade was signified by the dress of the young ecclesiastic, but he conjectured (chiefly from its plainness and extreme shabbiness) that it was not a very high one. The young man's face pleased him. It was intellectual and refined in contour, rather of the ascetic type; with that faint redness about the heavy eyelids which suggests an insufficiency of sleep or a too great amount of study; large, penetrating, dark eyes, underneath a broad, white brow; a firm mouth and chin. There was something about his face which seemed vaguely familiar to Brian; and yet he could not in the least remember where he had seen it before, or what associations it called up in his mind.

The young man courteously raised his broad, felt hat.

"Pardon me," he said, "you are ill--suffering--can I do nothing for you?"

"I am not ill, thank you. You are very good, but I want nothing," said Brian, with a feeling of annoyance which showed itself in the coldness of his manner. And yet he was attracted rather than repelled by the stranger's voice and manner. The voice was musical, the manner decidedly prepossessing. He was not sorry that the young ecclesiastic did not seem ready to accept the rebuff, but took a seat on the bench by his side, and made a remark upon the scenery through which they were passing.

Brian responded slightly enough, but with less coldness; and in a few minutes--he did not know how it happened--he was talking to the stranger more freely than he had done to anyone since he left England. Their conversation was certainly confined to trivial topics; but there was a frankness and a delicacy of perception about the young foreigner which made him a very attractive companion. He gave Brian in a few words an outline of the chief events of his life, and seemed to expect no confidence from Brian in return. He had been brought up in a Roman Catholic seminary, and was destined to become a Benedictine monk. He was on his way to join an elder priest in Mainz; thence he expected to proceed to Italy, but was not sure of his destination.

"I shall perhaps meet you again, then?" said Brian. "I am perhaps going to Italy myself."

The young man smiled and shook his head. "You are scarcely likely to encounter me, monsieur," he answered. "I shall be busy amongst the poor and sick, or at work within the monastery. I shall remember you--but I do not think that we shall meet again."

"By what name should I ask for you if I came across any of your order?"

said Brian.

"I am generally known as Dino Vasari, or Brother Dino, at your service, monsieur," replied the Italian, cheerfully. "If, in your goodness, you wished to inquire after me, you should ask at the monastery of San Stefano, where I spend a few weeks every year in retreat. The Prior, Father Cristoforo, is an old friend of mine, and he will always welcome you if you should pass that way. There is good sleeping accommodation for visitors."

Brian took the trouble to make an entry in his note-book to this effect.

It turned out to be a singularly useful one. As they were reaching Mainz something prompted Brian to ask a question. "Why did you speak to me this afternoon?" he said, the morbid suspiciousness of a man who is sick in mind as well as body returning full upon him. "You do not know me?"

"No, monsieur, I do not know you." The ecclesiastic's pale brow flushed; he even looked embarrassed. "Monsieur," he said at last, "you had the appearance--you will pardon my saying so--of one who was either ill or bore about with him some unspoken trouble; it is the privilege of the Order to which I hope one day to belong to offer help when help is needed; and for a moment I hoped it might be my special privilege to give some help to you."

"Why did you think so?" Brian asked, hastily. "You did not know my name?"

The Italian cast down his eyes. "Yes, monsieur," he said in a low tone, "I did know your name."

Brian started up. He did not stop to weigh probabilities; he forgot how little likely a young foreign seminarist would be to hear news of an accident in Scotland; he felt foolishly certain that his name--as that of the man who had killed his brother--must be known to all the world!

It was the wildest possible delusion, such as could occur only to a man whose mind was off its balance--and even he could not retain it for more than a minute or two; but in that space of time he uttered a few wild words, which caused the young monk to raise his dark eyes to his face with a look of sorrowful compassion.

"Does everyone know my wretched story, then? Do I carry a mark about with me--like Cain?" Brian cried aloud.

"I know nothing of your story, monsieur," said Brother Dino, as he called himself, after a little pause, "When I said that I knew your name, I should more properly have said the name of your family. A gentleman of your name once visited the little town where I was brought up." He paused again and added gently, "I have peculiar reasons for remembering him. He was very good to a member of my family."

Brian had recovered his self-possession before the end of the young priest's speech, and was heartily ashamed of his own weakness.

"I beg your pardon," he said, sinking back into his seat with an air of weariness and discouragement that would have touched the heart of a tender-natured man, such as was Brother Dino of San Stefano. "I must be an utter fool to have spoken as I did. You knew my father, did you? That must be long ago."