"GOOD-BYE."

"I see," he said, dropping her hands and turning away with a heavy sigh.

"I was too late."

"Don't misunderstand me," said Elizabeth, with an effort. "I shall be very happy. I owe a debt to my uncle and my cousins which scarcely anything can repay."

"Give them anything but yourself" he said, gravely. "It is not right--I do not speak for myself now, but for you--it is not right to marry a man whom you do not love."

"But I did not say that I do not love him," she cried, trying to shield herself behind this barrier of silence. "I said only that you had no right to ask the question."

Brian looked at her and paused.

"You are wrong," he said at last, but so gently that she could not take offence. "Surely one who cares for you as I do may know whether or not you love the man that you are going to marry. It is no unreasonable question, I think, Elizabeth. And if you do not love him, then again I say that you are wrong and that it is not like your brave and honest self to be silent."

"I cannot help it," she said, faintly. "I must keep my word."

"You are the best judge of that," he answered. But there was a little coldness in his tone.

"Yes, I am the best judge," she went on more firmly. "I have promised; and I will not break the promise that I have made. I told you before how much I consider that I owe to them. Now that I have the chance of doing a thing that will benefit, not only Percival, but all of them--from a worldly point of view, I mean--I cannot bear to think of drawing back from what I said I would do."

"How will it benefit them?"

"In a very small way, no doubt," she said, looking aside, so that she might not see the mute protest of his face; "because worldly prosperity is a small thing after all; but if you had seen, as I have, what it was to my uncle to live in a poverty-stricken, sordid way, hampered with duns and debts, and Percival harassing himself with vain endeavours to set things straight, and the children feeling the sting of poverty more and more as they grew older--and then to know that one has the power in one's hands of remedying everything, without giving pain or hurting any one's pride, or----"

"I am sorry," said Brian, as she hesitated for a word. "But I do not understand."

"Why not!"

"How can you set things straight? And how is it that things want setting straight? Mr. Heron is--surely--a rich man."

She laughed; even in the midst of her agitation, she laughed a soft, pleasant, little laugh.

"Oh, I forgot," she said, suddenly. "You do not know. I found out on the day you came that you did not know."

"Did not know--what?"

She raised her eyes to his face, and spoke with gravity, but great sweetness.

"Nobody meant to deceive you," she said; "in fact, I scarcely know how it is that you have not learnt the truth--partly; I suppose, because in Italy I begged them not to tell anybody the true state of the case; but, really, my uncle is not rich at all. He is a poor man. And Percival is poor, too--very poor," she added, with a lingering sigh over the last two words.

"Poor! But--how could a poor man travel in Italy, and rent the Villa Venturi, say nothing of Strathleckie?"

"He did not rent it. They were my guests."

"Your guests? And what are they now, then?"

"My guests still."

Brian rose to his feet.

"Then you are a rich woman?"

"Yes."

"It is you, perhaps, who have paid me for teaching these boys?"

"There is no disgrace in being paid for work that is worth doing and that is done well," said Elizabeth, flashing an indignant look at him.

He bowed his head to the rebuke.

"You are right, Miss Murray. But you will, I hope, do me the justice to see that I was perfectly ignorant of the state of affairs; that I was blind--foolishly blind----"

"Not foolishly. You could not help it."

"I might have seen. I might have known. I took you for----" And there Brian stopped, actually colouring at the thought of his mistake.

"For the poor relation; the penniless cousin. But it was most natural that you should, and two years ago it would have been perfectly true. I have not been a rich woman for very many months, and I do not love my riches very much."

"If I had known," began Brian; and then he burst out with a sudden change of tone. "Give them your riches, since they value them and you do not, and give yourself to me, Elizabeth. Surely your debt to them would then be paid."

"What! by recompensing kindness with treachery?" she said, glancing at him mournfully. "No, that plan would not answer. The money is a small part of what I owe them. But I do sometimes wish that it had gone to anybody but me; especially when I remember the sad circumstances under which it became mine. When I think of poor Mrs. Luttrell of Netherglen, I have never felt as if it were right to spend her sons' inheritance in what gave pleasure to myself alone."

"Mrs. Luttrell of ---- But what have you to do with her?" said Brian, with a sudden fixity of feature and harshness of voice that alarmed Elizabeth. "Mrs. Luttrell of Netherglen! Good Heaven! It is not you--you--who inherited that property? The Luttrell-Murrays----"

"I am the only Luttrell-Murray living," said Elizabeth.

He stared at her dumbly, as if he could not believe his ears.

"And you have the Luttrell estate?" he said at last.

"I have."

"I am glad of it," he answered; and then he put his hand over his eyes for a second or two, as if to shut out the light of day. "Yes, I am very glad."

"What do you mean, Mr. Stretton?" said Elizabeth, who was watching him intently. "Do you know anything of my family? Do you know anything of the Luttrells?"

"I have met some of them," he answered, slowly. His face was paler than usual, and his eyes, after one hasty glance at her, fell to the ground.

"It was a long time ago. I do not know them now."

"You said you had been here before. You----"

"Miss Murray, don't question me as to how I knew them. You cannot guess what a painful subject it is to me. I would rather not discuss it."

"But, Mr. Stretton----"

"Let me tell you something else," he said, hastily, as if anxious to change the subject. "Let me ask you--as you are the arbitress of my destiny, my employer, I may call you--when you will let me go. Could the boys do without me at once, do you think? You would soon find another tutor."

"Mr. Stretton! Why should you go? Do you mean to leave us?" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Oh, surely it is not necessary to do that!"