"Mother!" Dino's musical tones were tremulous. "My mother! I have thought of her all my life."

"Ay, my poor son, and but for the wickedness of others, I might have seen and known you years ago. I had an interloper in my house throughout all those years, and he worked me the bitterest sorrow of my life."

"Do not speak so of Brian, mother," said Dino, gently. "He loved you--and he loved Richard. His loss--his grief--has been greater even than yours."

"How dare you say so to me?" said Mrs. Luttrell, with a momentary return to her old, grim tones. Then, immediately softening them--"But you may say anything you like. It is pleasure enough to hear your voice. You must stay with me, Brian, and let me feast my eyes on you for a time. I have no patience, no moderation left: 'my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.'"

He raised his mother's hand and kissed it silently. The action would, of course, have been lost upon Hugo, as he could not see the pair, but for Mrs. Luttrell's next words.

"Nay," she said, "kiss me on the cheek, not on the hand, Brian. I let Hugo Luttrell do it, because of his foreign blood; but you have only a foreign training which you must forget. They said something about your wearing a priest's dress: I am glad you did not wear it here, for you would have been mobbed in Dunmuir. It's a sad pity that you're a Papist, Brian; but we must set Mr. Drummond, our minister, to talk to you, and he'll soon show you the error of your ways."

"I shall be very glad to hear what Mr. Drummond has to say," said Dino, with all the courtesy which his monastic training had instilled; "but I fear that he will have his labour thrown away. And I have one or two things to tell you, mother, now that those gentlemen have gone. If I am to disappoint you, let me do it at once, so that you may understand."

"Disappoint me? and how can you do that?" asked Mrs. Luttrell, scornfully. "Perhaps you mean that you will winter in the South! If your health requires it, do you think I would stand in the way? You have a sickly air, but it makes you all the more like one whom I well remember--your father's brother, who died of a decline in early youth.

No, go if you like; I will not tie you down. You can come back in the summer, and then we will think about your settling down and marrying.

There are plenty of nice girls in the neighbourhood, though none so good as Angela, nor perhaps so handsome as Elizabeth Murray."

"Mother, I shall never marry."

"Not marry? and why not?" cried Mrs. Luttrell, indignantly. "But you say this to tease me only; being a Luttrell--the only Luttrell, indeed, save Hugo, that remains--you must marry and continue the family."

"I shall never marry," said Dino, with a firmness which at last seemed to make an impression upon Mrs. Luttrell, "because I am going to be a monk."

Hugo could not stifle a quick catching of his breath. Did Dino mean what he said? And what effect would this decision have upon the lives of the many persons whose future seemed to be bound up with his? What would Mrs. Luttrell say?

At first she said nothing. And then Dino's voice was heard again.

"Mother, my mother, do not look at me like that. I must follow my vocation. I would have given myself years ago, but I was not allowed.

The Prior will receive me now. And nothing on earth will turn me from my resolution. I have made up my mind."

"What!" said Mrs. Luttrell, very slowly. "You will desert me too, after all these years!"

Dino answered by repeating in Latin the words--"He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." But Mrs. Luttrell interrupted him angrily.

"I want none of your Latin gibberish," she said. "I want plain commonsense. If you go into a monastery, do you intend to give the property to the monks? Perhaps you want to turn Netherglen into a convent, and establish a priory at Strathleckie? Well, I cannot prevent you. What fools we are to think that there is any happiness in this world!"

"Mother!" said Dino, and his voice was very gentle, "let me speak to you of another before we talk about the estates. Let me speak to you of Brian."

"Brian!" Her voice had a checked tone for a moment; then she recovered herself and spoke in her usual harsh way. "I know no one of that name but you."

"I mean my friend whom you thought to be your son for so many years, mother. Have you no tenderness for him? Do you not think of him with a little love and pity? Let me tell you what he suffered. When he came to us first at San Stefano he was nearly dying of grief. It was long before we nursed him back to health. When I think how we all learnt to love him, mother, I cannot but believe that you must love him, too."

"I never loved him," said Mrs. Luttrell. "He stood in your place. If you had a spark of proper pride in you, you would know that he was your enemy, and you will feel towards him as I do."

"He is an enemy that I have learned to love," answered Dino. "At any rate, mother"--his voice always softened when he called her by that name--"at any rate, you will try to love him now."

"Why now?" She asked the question sharply.

"Because I mean him to fill my place."

There was a little silence, in which the fall of a cinder from the grate could be distinctly heard. Then Mrs. Luttrell uttered a long, low moan.

"Oh, my God!" she said. "What have I done that I should be tormented in this way?"

"Mother, mother, do not say so," said Dino, evidently with deep emotion.

Then, in a lower and more earnest voice, he added--"Perhaps if you had tried to love the child that Vincenza placed within your arms that day, you would have felt joy and not sorrow now."

"Do you dare to rebuke your mother?" said Mrs. Luttrell, fiercely. "If I had loved that child, I would never have acknowledged you to-day. Not though all the witnesses in the world swore to your story."

"That perhaps would have been the better for me," said Dino, softly.

"Mother, I am going away from you for ever; let me leave you another son. He has never grieved you willingly; forgive him for those misfortunes which he could not help; love him instead of me."

"Never!"

"He has gone to the other side of the world, but I think he would come back if he knew that you had need of him. Let me send him a line, a word, from you: make him the master of Netherglen, and let me go in peace."

"I will not hear his name, I will not tolerate his presence within these walls," cried Mrs. Luttrell, passionately. "He was never dear to me, never; and he is hateful to me now. He has robbed me of both my sons: his hand struck Richard down, and for twenty-three years he usurped your place. I will never see him again. I will never forgive him so long as my tongue can speak."

"Then may God forgive you," said Dino, in a strangely solemn voice, "for you are doing a worse injustice, a worse wrong, than that done by the poor woman who tried to put her child in your son's place. Have you held that child upon your knee, kissed his face, and seen him grow up to manhood, without a particle of love for him in your heart? Did you send him away from you with bitter reproaches, because of the accident which he would have given his own life to prevent? You have spoilt his life, and you do not care. Your heart is hard then, and God will not let that hardness go unpunished. Mother, pray that his judgments may not descend upon you for this."

"You have no right to talk to me in that way," said Mrs. Luttrell, with a great effort. "I have not been unjust. You are ungrateful. If you go away from me, I will leave all that I possess to Hugo, as I intended to do. Brian, as you call him--Vincenza Vasari's son--shall have nothing."

"And Brian is to be disinherited in favour of Hugo Luttrell, is he?"

said Dino, in a still lower voice, but one which the listener felt instinctively had a dangerous sound. "Do you know what manner of man this Hugo Luttrell is, that you wish to enrich him with your wealth, and make him the master of Netherglen?"

"I know no harm of him," she answered.

He paused a little, and turned his face--was it consciously or unconsciously?--towards the open door, from which could be seen the screen, behind which the unhappy listener crouched and quivered in agony of fear. Willingly would Hugo have turned and fled, but flight was now impossible. The fire was blazing brightly, and threw a red glow over all the room. If he emerged from behind the screen, his figure would be distinctly visible to Dino, whose face was turned in that direction.

What was he going to say?

"I know no harm of him," she answered.

"Then I will enlighten you. Hugo Luttrell knew that Brian was alive, that I was in England, two months ago. A letter from the Prior of San Stefano must have been in some way intercepted by him; he made use of his knowledge, however he obtained it, to bring the messages from Brian which were utterly false, to try and induce me to relinquish my claim on you; he forged a letter from Brian for that purpose; and finally----"

Mrs. Luttrell's voice, harsh and strident with emotion, against which she did her best to fight, broke the sudden silence.

"Do you call it fair and right," she said, "to accuse a man of such faults as these behind his back? If you want to tell me anything against Hugo, send for him and tell it to me in his presence. Then he can defend himself."

"He will try to defend himself, no doubt," said Dino, with a note of melancholy scorn in his grave, young voice. "But I will do nothing behind his back. You wish him to be summoned?"

"Yes, I do. Ring the bell instantly!" cried Mrs. Luttrell, whose loving ardour seemed to have given way to the most unmitigated resentment.

"Tell the servants to find him and bring him here."

"They would not have far to go," said Dino, coolly. "He is close to hand. Hugo Luttrell, come here and answer for yourself."

"What do you mean? Where is he?" exclaimed Mrs. Luttrell, struck with his tone of command. "He is not in this room!"

"No, but he is in the next, hiding behind that screen. He has been there for the last half-hour. You need play the spy no longer, sir. Have the goodness to step forward and show yourself."