"Perhaps you did not hear in your quiet monastery, Father, of a party of travellers who perished in an avalanche last November? Two guides, a porter, and an Englishman, whose body was never recovered. I was that Englishman."

"I heard of the accident," said Padre Cristoforo, briefly, nodding his head. "So you escaped, signor? You must have had strong limbs and stout sinews--or else you must have been attended by some special providential care--to escape, when those three skilled mountaineers were lost on the mountain side."

"On ne meurt pas quand la mort est la delivrance," quoted Brian, with a bitter laugh. "You may be quite sure that if I had been at the height of felicity and good fortune, it would have needed but a false step, or a slight chill, or a stray shot--a stray shot! oh, my God! If only some stray shot had come to me--not to my brother--my brother----"

They were the first tears that he had shed since the beginning of his illness. The sudden memory of his brother's fate proved too much for him in his present state of bodily weakness. He bowed his head on his hands and wept.

A curiously soft expression stole into the Prior's face. He looked at Brian once or twice and seemed as if he wished to say some pitying word, but, in point of fact, no word of consolation occurred to him. He was very sorry for Brian, whose story was perfectly familiar to him; but he knew very well that Brian's grief was not one to which words could bring comfort. He waited silently, therefore, until the mood had passed, and the young man lifted up his heavy eyes and quivering lips with a faint attempt at a smile, which was sadder than those passionate sobs had been.

"I must ask pardon," he said, somewhat confusedly. "I did not know that I was so weak. I will go to my room."

"Let me delay you for one moment," said the Prior, confronting him with kindly authority. "It has needed little penetration, signor, to discover that you have lately passed through some great sorrow; I am now more sure of it than ever. I would not intrude upon your confidence, but I ask you to remember that I wish to be your friend--that there are reasons why I should take a special interest in you and your family, and that, humble as I am, I may be of use to you and yours."

Brian stopped short and looked at him. "Me and mine!" he repeated to himself. "Me and mine! What do you know of us?"

"I will be frank with you," said the priest. "Thirteen years ago a document of a rather remarkable nature was placed in my hands affecting the Luttrell family. In this paper the writer declared that she, as the nurse of Mrs. Luttrell's children, had substituted her own child for a boy called Brian Luttrell, and had carried off the true Brian to her mother, a woman named Assunta Naldi. The nurse, Vincenza, died and left this paper in the hands of her mother, who, after much hesitation, confided the secret to me."

Brian took a step nearer to the Prior. "What right have you had to keep this matter secret so long?" he demanded.

"Say, rather, what right had I to disturb an honourable family with an assertion that is incapable of proof?"

"Then why did you tell me now?"

"Because you know it already."

Brian seated himself and leaned back in his chair, with his eyes still fixed upon the Prior's face.

"Why do you think that I know it?" he said.

"Because," said Padre Cristoforo, raising his long forefinger, and emphasising every fresh point with a convincing jerk, "because you have come to San Stefano. You would never have come here unless you wanted to find out the truth. Because you have changed your name. You would have had no reason to abandon the name of Luttrell unless you were not sure of your right to bear it. Because you spoke of Vincenza in your delirium. Do I need more proofs?"

There was another proof which he did not mention. He had found Mrs.

Luttrell's letter to Brian amongst the sick man's clothes, and had carefully perused it before locking it up with the rest of the stranger's possessions. It was characteristic of the man that, during the last few years, he had set himself steadily to work to master the English language by the aid of every English book or English-speaking traveller that came in his way. He had succeeded wonderfully well, and no one but himself knew for what purpose that arduous task had been undertaken. He found his accomplishment useful; he had thought it particularly useful when he read Mrs. Luttrell's letter. But naturally he did not say so to Brian.

"You are right," said Brian, in a low voice. "But you say it is incapable of proof. She--my mother--I mean Mrs. Luttrell--says so, too."

"If it were capable of proof," said the Prior, softly, "should you contest the matter?"

"Yes," Brian answered, with an angry flash of his eyes, "if I had been in England, and any such claimant appeared, I would have fought the ground to the last inch! Not for the sake of the estates--I have given those up easily enough--but for my father's sake. I would not lightly give up my claim to call him father; he never doubted once that I was his son."

"He never doubted?"

"I am sure he never did."

"But Mrs. Luttrell----"

"God help me, yes! But she thinks also that I meant to take my brother's life."

It needed but a few words of inquiry to lead Brian to tell the story of his brother's death. The Prior knew it well enough; he had made it his business to ascertain the history of the Luttrell family during the past few years; but he listened with the gentle and sympathetic interest which had often given him so strong a hold over men's hearts and lives.

He was a master in the art of influencing younger men; he had the subtle instinct which told him exactly what to say and how far to go, when to speak and when to be silent; and Brian, with no motive for concealment, now that his name was once known, was like a child in the Prior's hands.

In return for his confidence, Padre Cristoforo told him the substance of his interview with old Assunta, and of the confession written by Vincenza. But when Brian asked to see this paper the Prior shook his head.

"I have not got it here," he said. "It was certainly preserved, by the desire of some in authority, but it was not thought to afford sufficient testimony."

"What was wanting?"

"I cannot tell you precisely what was wanting; but, amongst other matters, there is the fact that this Vincenza made a directly opposite statement, which counterbalances this one."

"Then you have two written statements, contradicting each other? You might as well throw them both into the fire," said Brian, with some irritation. "Who is the 'authority' who preserves them? Can I not present myself to him and demand a sight of the documents?"

"Under what name, and for what reason, would you ask to see them?"

Brian winced; he had for the moment forgotten what his own hand had done.

"I could still prove my identity," he said, looking down. "But, no; I will not. I did not lose myself upon the mountain-side because of this mystery about my birth, but because I wanted to escape my mother's reproaches and the burden of Richard's inheritance. Nothing will induce me to go back to Scotland. To all intents and purposes, I am dead."

"Then," said the Prior, "since that is your resolution--your wise resolution, let me say--I will tell you frankly what my reading of the riddle has been, and what, I think, Vincenza did. It is my belief that Mrs. Luttrell's child died, and was buried under the name of Vincenza's child."

"You, too, then--you believe that I am not a Luttrell?"

"If the truth could ever be ascertained, which I do not think it will be, I believe that this would turn out to be the case. The key of the whole matter lies in the fact that Vincenza had twins. One of these children was sent to the grandmother in the country; one was nursed in the village of San Stefano. A fever had broken out in the village, and Vincenza's charge--the little Brian Luttrell--died. She immediately changed the dead child for her own, being wishful to escape the blame of carelessness, and retain her place; also to gain for her own child the advantages of wealth and position. The two boys, who have now grown to manhood, are brothers; children, of one mother; and Brian Luttrell--a baby boy of some four months old--sleeps, as his mother declares, in the graveyard of San Stefano."

"Why did the nurse confess only a half-truth, then?"

"She wanted to get absolution; and yet she did not want to injure the prospects of her child, I suppose. At the worst, she thought that one boy would be substituted for another. The woman was foolish--and wicked," said the Prior, with a grain of impatient contempt in his tone; "and the more foolish that she did not observe that she was outwitting herself--trying to cheat God as well as man."

"Then--you think--that I----"

"That you are the son of an Italian gardener and his wife. Courage, my son; it might have been worse. But I know nothing positively; I have constructed a theory out of Vincenza's self-contradictions; it may be true; it may be false. Of one thing I would remind you; that as you have given up your position in England and Scotland, you have no responsibility in the matter. You have done exactly what the law would have required you to do had it been proved that you were Vincenza's son."

"But the other child--the boy who was sent to his grandmother? What became of him?"

The Prior looked at him in silence for a little time before he spoke.

"How do you feel towards him?" he said, finally. "Are you prepared to treat him as a brother or not?"

Brian averted his face. "I have had but one brother," he said, shortly.

"I cannot expect to find another--especially when I am not sure that he is of my blood or I of his."

"In any case he is your foster-brother. I should like you to meet him."

"Does he know the story?"

"He does."

"And is prepared to welcome me as a brother?" said Brian, with a bitter but agitated laugh. "Where is he? I will see him if you like."

He had risen to his feet, and stood with his arms crossed, his brow knitted, his mouth firmly set. There was something hard in his face, something defiant in his attitude, which caused the Prior to add a word of remonstrance. "It is not his fault," he said, "any more than it is yours. You need not be enemies; it is my object to make you friends."