"Then listen. The reason of his change of mind is this. He has fallen in love. You will ask--with whom? With the woman to whom his estate has passed--Miss Murray. He means to marry her, and in that way to get back the estate which, by his own mad folly, he has forfeited."

"Is this true?" said Dino, slowly. He fixed his penetrating dark eyes upon Hugo as he spoke, and turned a little pale. "And does this lady--this Miss Murray--know who he is? For I hear that he calls himself Stretton in her house. Does she know?"

Hugo deliberated a little. "No," he answered, "I am sure that she does not."

Dino rose to his feet. "It is impossible," he said, with an indignant flash of his dark eyes, which startled Hugo; "Brian would never be so base."

"My only wonder is," murmured Hugo, reflectively, "that Brian should be so clever."

"You call it clever?" said Dino, still more indignantly. "You call it clever to deceive a woman, to marry her for her money, to mislead her about one's name? Are these your English fashions? Is it clever to break your word, to throw away the love and the help that is offered you, to show yourself selfish, and designing, and false? This is what you tell me about the man whom you call your cousin, and then you ask me to admire his behaviour? Oh, no, I do not admire it. I call it mean, and base, and vile. And that is why he would not come to see me himself; that is why he sent you as an emissary. He could not look me in the face and tell me the things that you have told me!"

He sat down again. The fire died out of his eyes, the hectic colour from his cheek. "But I do not believe it!" he said, more sorrowfully than angrily; and in a much lower voice; "I do not believe that he means to do this thing. He was always good and always true."

Hugo watched him, and spoke after a little pause. "You had his letter,"

he said. "He told you to believe what I said to you. I could explain his views."

"Ah, but look you, perhaps you do not understand," said Dino, turning towards him with renewed vivacity. "It is a hard position, this of mine.

Ever since I was a little child, it was hinted to me that I had English parents, that I did not belong to the Vasari family. When I grew older, the whole story of Vincenza's change of the children was told to me, and I used to think of the Italian boy who had taken my place, and wonder whether he would be sorry to exchange it for mine. I was not sorry; I loved my own life in the monastery. I wanted to be a priest. But I thought of the boy who bore my name; I wove fancies about him night and day; I wished with all my heart to see him. I used to think that the day would come when I should say to him--'Let us know each other; let us keep our secret, but love each other nevertheless. You can be Brian Luttrell, and I will be Dino Vasari, as long as the world lasts. We will not change. But we will be friends.'"

His voice grew husky; he leaned his head upon his hands for a few moments, and did not speak. Hugo still watched him curiously. He was interested in the revelation of a nature so different from his own; interested, but contemptuous of it, too.

"I could dream in this way," said Dino at last, "so long as no land--no money--was concerned. While Brian Luttrell was the second son the exchange of children was, after all, of very little consequence. When Richard Luttrell died, the position of things was changed. If he had lived, you would never have heard of Vincenza Vasari's dishonesty. The priests knew that there would be little to be gained by it. But when he died my life became a burden to me, because they were always saying--'Go and claim your inheritance. Go to Scotland and dispossess the man who lords it over your lands, and spends your revenues. Take your rights.'"

"And then you met Brian?" said Hugo, as the narrator paused again.

"I met him and I loved him. I was sorry for his unhappiness. He learnt the story that I had known for so many years, and it galled him. He refused to see the man who really ought to have borne his name. He knew me well enough, but he never suspected that I was Mr. Luttrell's son. We parted at San Stefano with friendly words; he did not suspect that I was leaving the place because I could not bear to see him day by day brooding over his grief, and never tell him that I did not wish to take his place."

"But why did you not tell him?"

"I was ordered to keep silence. The Prior said that he would tell him the whole story in good time. They sent me away, and, after a time, I heard from Father Cristoforo that he was gone, and had found a tutorship in an English family, that he vowed never to bear the name of Luttrell any more, and that the way was open for me to claim my own rights, as the woman Vincenza Vasari had been found and made confession."

"So you came to England with that object?"

"With the object, first," said Dino, lifting his face from his crossed arms, "of seeing him and asking him whether he was resolved to despoil himself of his name and fortune. I would not have raised a hand to do either, but, if he himself did it, I thought that I might pick up what he threw away. Not for myself, but for the Church to which I belong. The Church should have it all."

"Would you give it away?" cried Hugo.

"I am to be a monk. A monk has no property," was Dino's answer. "I wanted to be sure that he did not repent of his decision before I moved a finger."

"You seem to have no scruple about despoiling Miss Murray of her goods,"

said Hugo, drily.

A fresh gleam shot from the young man's eyes.

"Miss Murray is a woman," he said, briefly. "She does not need an estate. She will marry."

"Marry Brian Luttrell, perhaps."

"If she marries him as Mr. Stretton, she must take the consequences."

"Well," said Hugo, "I must confess, Mr. Vasari, that I do not understand you. In one breath you say you would not injure Brian by a hair's-breadth; in another you propose to leave him and his wife in poverty if he marries Miss Murray."

"No, pardon me, you mistake," replied Dino, gently. "I will never injure him whom you call, Brian, but if he keeps the name of Stretton I shall claim the rights which he has given up. And, when the estate is mine, I will give him and his wife what they want; I will give them half, if they desire it, but I will have what is my own, first of all, and in spite of all."

"You say, in fact, that you will not injure Brian, but that you do not care how much you injure Miss Murray."

"That is not it," cried Dino, his dark eye lighting up and his form positively trembling with excitement. "I say that, if Brian himself had come to me and asked me to spare him, or the woman he loved, for his sake I would have yielded and gone back to San Stefano to-morrow; I would have destroyed the evidence; I would have given up all, most willingly; but when he treats me harshly, coldly--when he will not, now that he knows who I am, make one little journey to see me and tell me what he wishes; when he even tries to deceive me, and to deceive this lady of whom you speak--why, then, I stand upon my rights; and I will not yield one jot of my claim to the Luttrell estate and the Luttrell name."

"You will not?"

"I will fight to the death for it."

Hugo smiled slightly.

"There will be very little fighting necessary, if you have your evidence ready. You have it with you, I presume?"

"I have copies; the original depositions are with my lawyer."

"Ah. And he is----"

"A Mr. Grattan; there is his address," said Dino, placing a card before his visitor. "I suppose that all further business will be transacted through him?"

"I suppose so. Then you have made your decision?"

"Yes. One moment, Mr. Luttrell. Excuse me for mentioning it; but you have made two statements, one of which seems to me to contradict the other." Dino had recovered all his usual coolness, and fixed his keen gaze upon Hugo in a way which that young man found a little embarrassing. "You told me that Brian--as we may still call him--intended to claim his old name once more. Then you said that he meant to marry Miss Murray under the name of Stretton. You will remark that these two intentions are incompatible; he cannot do both these things."

Hugo felt that he had blundered.

"I spoke hastily," he said, with an affectation of ingenuous frankness, which sat very well upon his youthful face. "I believe that his intentions are to preserve the name of Stretton, and to marry Miss Murray under it."

"Then I will tell Mr. Grattan to take the necessary steps to-morrow,"

said Dino, rising, as if to hint that the interview had now come to an end.

Hugo looked at him with surprised, incredulous eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Vasari," he said, naively, "don't let us part on these unfriendly terms. Perhaps you will think better of the matter, and more kindly of Brian, if we talk it over a little more."

"At the present moment, I think talk will do more harm than good, Mr.

Luttrell."

"Won't you write yourself to Brian?" faltered Hugo, as if he hardly dared to make the suggestion.

"No, I think not. You will tell him my decision."

"I'm afraid I have been a bad ambassador," said Hugo, with an air of boyish simplicity, "and that I have offended you."

"Not at all." Dino held out his hand. "You have spoken very wisely, I think. Do not let me lose your esteem if I claim what I believe to be my rights."