A REVELATION.

Percival started from his chair. His first exclamation was a rather profane one, for which the monk immediately reproved him. He did not take much notice of the reproof: he stared hard at the young man for a minute or two, unconsciously repeated the objectionable expression, and then took one or two turns up and down the room. After which he came to a standstill, thrust his hands into his pockets, and allowed his features to relax into a sardonically-triumphant smile.

"You couldn't tell me a thing which I should be better pleased to hear,"

he said. "But I don't believe it's true."

This was rude, but the visitor was not disconcerted. He looked at Percival's masterful face with interest, and a little suspicion, and answered quietly:--

"I do not know exactly what evidence will satisfy you, sir. Of course, you will require evidence. I, myself, Bernardino Vasari of San Stefano, can testify that I saw Brian Luttrell in our monastery on the 27th day of November, some days after his reputed death. I can account for all his time after that date, and I can tell you where he is to be found at present. His cousin, Hugo Luttrell, has already recognised him, and, although he is much changed, I fancy that there would be small doubt about his identification."

"But why, in Heaven's name, did he allow himself to be thought dead?"

cried Percival.

"You know, probably, the circumstances attending his brother's death?"

said Dino, gently. "These, and a cruel letter from Mrs. Luttrell, made him resolve to take advantage of an accident in which his companions were killed. He made his way to a little inn on the southern side of the Alps, and thence to our monastery, where I recognised him as the gentleman whom I had previously seen travelling in Germany. I had had some conversation with him, and he had interested me--I remembered him well."

"Did he give his name as Brian Luttrell then?"

"I accosted him by it, and he begged me at once not to do so, but to give him another name."

"What name?"

"I will tell you the name presently, Mr. Heron. He remained in the monastery for some months: first ill of a fever on the brain, then, after his recovery, as a teacher to our young pupils. When he grew stronger he became tired of our peaceful life; he left the monastery and wandered from place to place in Italy. But he had no money: he began to think of work. He was learned: he could teach: he thought that he might be a tutor. Shall I go on?"

"Good God!" said Percival, below his breath. He had actually turned pale, and was biting his moustache savagely. "Go on, sir!" he thundered, looking at Dino from beneath his knitted brows. "Tell me the rest as quickly as you can."

"He met with an English family," Dino continued, watching with keen interest the effect of his words. "They were kind to him: they took him, without character, without recommendations, and allowed him to teach their children. He did not know who they were: he thought that they were rich people, and that the young lady who was so dutiful to them, and cared so tenderly for their children, was poor like himself, a dependent like himself. He dared, therefore----"

"He lies and you lie!" Percival burst out, furiously. "How dare you come to me with a tale of this sort? He must have known! It was simply a base deception in order to get back his estate. If I had him here----"

"If you had him here you would listen to him, Mr. Heron," said Dino, in a perfectly unmoved voice, "as you will listen to me when the first shock of your surprise is over."

"Your garb, I suppose, protects you," said Percival, sharply. "Else I would throw you out of the window to join your accomplice outside. I daresay he is there. I don't believe a word of your story. May I trouble you to go?"

"This conduct is unworthy of you, sir," said Dino. "Brian Luttrell's identity will not be disproved by bluster. There is not the least doubt about it. Mr. Brian Luttrell is alive and has been teaching in your father's family for the last few months under the name of John Stretton."

"Then he is a scoundrel," said Percival. He threw himself into his chair again, with his feet stretched out before him, and his hands still thrust deep into his trousers' pockets. His face was white with rage. "I always thought that he was a rogue; and, if this story is true, he has proved himself one."

"How?" said Dino, quietly. "By living in poverty when he might have been rich? By allowing others to take what was legally his own, because he had a scruple about his moral right to it? If you knew all Brian Luttrell's story you would know that his only fault has been that of over-conscientiousness, over-scrupulousness. But you do not know the story, perhaps you never will, and, therefore, you cannot judge."

"I do not want to judge. I have nothing to do with Mr. Stretton and his story," said Percival.

"I will tell you----"

"I will not hear. You are impostors, the pair of you."

Dino's eyes flashed and his lips compressed themselves. His face, thin from his late illness, assumed a wonderful sternness of expression.

"This is folly," he said, with a cold serenity of tone which impressed Percival in spite of himself. "You will have to hear part of his story sooner or later, Mr. Heron; for your own sake, for Miss Murray's sake, you had better hear it now."

"Look here, my good man," said Percival, sitting up, and regarding his visitor with contemptuous disgust, "don't go bringing Miss Murray's name into this business, for, if you do, I'll call a policeman and give you in charge for trying to extort money on false pretences, and you may thank your priest's dress, or whatever it is, that I don't kick you out of the house. Do you hear?"

"Sir," said Dino, mildly, but with great dignity, "have I asked you for a single penny?"

Heron looked at him as if he would like to carry out the latter part of his threat, but the young man was so frail, so thin, so feeble, that he felt suddenly ashamed of having threatened him. He rose, planted his back firmly against the mantelpiece, and pointed significantly to the door. "Go!" he said, briefly. "And don't come back."

"If I go," said Dino, rising from his chair, "I shall take the express train to Scotland at eight o'clock to-night, and I shall see Miss Murray to-morrow morning."

The shot told. A sort of quiver passed over Percival's set face. He muttered an angry ejaculation. "I'll see you d----d first," he said.

"You'll do nothing of the kind."

"Then will you hear my story?"

Heron paused. He could have ground his teeth with fury; but he was quite alive to the difficulties of the situation. If this young monk went with his story to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth believed it, what would become of her fidelity to him? With his habitual cynicism, he told himself that no woman would keep her word, if by doing so she lost a fortune and a lover both. He must hear this story, if only to prevent its being told to her.

"Well," he said at last, taking his pipe from the mantelshelf, "I'll listen. Be so good as to make your story short. I have no time to waste." And then he rammed the tobacco into the bowl with his thumb in a suggestively decisive manner, lighted it, and proceeded to puff at his pipe with a sort of savage vigour. He sent out great clouds of smoke, which speedily filled the air and rendered speaking difficult to Dino, whose lungs had become delicate in consequence of his wound. But Percival was rather pleased than otherwise to inconvenience him.

"There are several reasons," the young man began, "why Brian Luttrell wished to be thought dead. He had killed his brother by accident, and Mrs. Luttrell thought that there had been malice as well as carelessness in the deed. That was one reason. His mother's harshness preyed upon his mind and drove him almost to melancholy madness. Mrs. Luttrell made another statement, and made it in a way that convinced him that she had reasons for making it----"

"Can't you cut it short?" said Percival. "It's all very interesting, no doubt: but as I don't care a hang what Brian Luttrell said, or thought, or did, I should prefer to have as little of it as possible."

"I am sorry to inconvenience you, but I must tell my story in my own way," answered Dino. The flash of his eye and the increased colour in his cheek showed that Heron's words irritated him, but his voice was carefully calm and cool. "Mrs. Luttrell's statement was this: that Brian Luttrell was not her son at all. I have in my possession the letter that she wrote to him on the subject, assuring him confidently that he was the child of her Italian nurse, Vincenza Vasari, and that her own child had died in infancy, and was buried in the churchyard of San Stefano.

Here is the letter, if you like to assure yourself that what I have said is true."

Percival made a satirical little bow of refusal. But a look of attention had come into his eyes.

"Brian believed this story absolutely, although he had then no proof of its truth," continued Dino. "She told him that the Vasari family lived at San Stefano----"

"Vasari! Relations of your own, I presume," interposed Percival, with ironical politeness.

"And to San Stefano, therefore, he was making his way when the accident on the mountain occurred," said Dino, utterly disregarding the interruption. "There were inquiries made about him at San Stefano soon after the news of his supposed death arrived in England, for Mrs.

Luttrell guessed that he would go thither if he were still living; but he had not then appeared at the monastery. He did not arrive at San Stefano, as I said before, until a fortnight after the date of the accident; he had been ill, and was footsore and weary. When he recovered from the brain-fever which prostrated him as soon as he reached the monastery, he told his whole story to the Prior, Padre Cristoforo of San Stefano, a man whose character is far beyond suspicion. I have also Padre Cristoforo's statement, if you would like to see it."

Percival shook his head. But his pipe had gone out; he was listening now with interest.

"As it happened," the narrator went on, "Padre Cristoforo was already interested in the matter, because the mother of Mrs. Luttrell's nurse, Vincenza, had, before her death, confided to him her suspicions, and those of Vincenza's husband concerning the child that she had nursed.

There was a child living in the village of San Stefano, a child who had been brought up as Vincenza's child, but Vincenza had told her this boy was the true Brian Luttrell, and that her son had been taken back to Scotland as Mrs. Luttrell's child."

"I see your drift now," remarked Percival, quietly re-lighting his pipe.

"Where is this Italian Brian Luttrell to be found?"

"Need I tell you? Should I come here with this story if I were not the man?"

He asked the question almost sadly, but with a simplicity of manner which showed him to be free from any desire to produce any theatrical effect. He waited for a moment, looking steadily at Percival, whose darkening brow and kindling eyes displayed rapidly-rising anger.

"I was called Dino Vasari at San Stefano," he continued, "but I believe that my rightful name is Brian Luttrell, and that Vincenza Vasari changed the children during an illness of Mrs. Luttrell's."

"And that, therefore," said Percival, slowly, "you are the owner of the Strathleckie property--or, as it is generally called, the Luttrell property--now possessed by Miss Murray?"