"Oh," said Elizabeth, with a little extra colour in her cheeks, and the faintest possible touch of coldness, "no doubt he had his reasons for being silent; he will explain them when he comes."

"No doubt," said the lawyer, gravely; but he chuckled a little to himself over the account which Mr. Brett had given him that morning of Mr. Heron's disappointment. (Mr. Brett had thrown up the case, he told his friend Colquhoun; would have nothing more to do with it at any price. "I think the case has thrown you up," said Mr. Colquhoun, laughing slyly.)

He had taken up some papers which he had brought with him and was turning towards the door when a new thought caused him to stop, and address Elizabeth once more.

"Miss Murray," he said, "I do not wish to make a remark that would be unpleasant to you, but when I remember that Mr. Heron was in possession of the facts that I have just imparted to you, nearly a week ago, I do think, like yourself, that his conduct calls for an explanation."

"I did not say that I thought so, Mr. Colquhoun," said Elizabeth, feeling provoked. But Mr. Colquhoun was gone.

Nevertheless, she agreed with him so far that she sent off a telegram to Percival that afternoon. "Come to me at once, if possible. I want you."

When Percival received the message, which he did on his return from his club about eleven o'clock at night, he eyed the thin, pink paper on which it was written as if it had been a reptile of some poisonous kind.

"I expected it," he said to himself, and all the gaiety went out of his face. "She has found something out."

It was too late to do anything that night. He felt resentfully conscious that he should not sleep if he went to bed; so he employed the midnight hours in completing some items of work which ought to be done on the following day. Before it was light he had packed a hand-bag, and departed to catch the early train. He sent a telegram from Peterborough to say that he was on the way.

Of course, it was late when he reached Strathleckie, and he assured himself with some complacency that Elizabeth would expect no conversation with him until next morning. But he was a little mistaken.

In her quality of mistress, she had chosen to send everyone else to bed: the household was so well accustomed to Percival's erratic comings and goings, that nobody attached any importance to his visits; and even old Mr. Heron appeared only for a few minutes to gossip with his son while he ate a comfortable supper, retiring at last, with a nod to his niece which Percival easily understood. It meant--"I will do now what you told me you wished--leave you together to have your talk out." And Percival felt irritated by Elizabeth's determination.

"Will you smoke?" she asked, when the meal was over.

"I don't mind if I do. Will you come into the study--that's the smoking-room, is it not?--or is it too late for you?"

"It is not very late," said Elizabeth.

When they were seated in the study, Percival in a great green arm-chair, and Elizabeth opposite to him in a much smaller one, he attempted to take matters somewhat into his own hands.

"I won't ask to-night what you wanted me for," he said, easily. "I am rather battered and sleepy; we shall talk better to-morrow."

"You can set my mind at rest on one point, at any rate," rejoined Elizabeth, whose face burned with a feverish-looking flush. "It is, of course, a mistake that you knew a week ago of Brian Luttrell being in London?"

"Oh, of course," said Percival. But the irony in his voice was too plain for her to be deceived by it.

"Did you know, Percival?"

"Well, if you must have the plain truth," he said, sitting up and examining the end of his cigar with much attention, "I did."

She was silent. He raised his eyes, apparently with some effort, to her face; saw there a rather shocked and startled look, and rushed immediately into vehement speech.

"What if I did! Do you expect me to rush to you with every disturbing report I hear? I did not see this man, Brian Luttrell; I should not know him if I did--as Brian Luttrell, at any rate. I merely heard the story from a--an acquaintance of mine----"

"Dino Vasari," said Elizabeth.

"Oh, I see you know the facts. There is no need for me to say any more.

Of course, you attach no weight to any reasons I might have for silence."

"Indeed, I do, Percival; or I should do, if I knew what they were."

"Can you not guess them?" he said, looking at her intently. "Can you think of no powerful motive that would make me anxious to delay the telling of the story?"

"None," she said. "None, except one that would be beneath you."

"Beneath me? Is it possible?" scoffed Percival. "No motive is too base for me, allow me to tell you, my dear child. I am the true designing villain of romance. Go on: what is the one bad motive which you attribute to me?"

"I do not attribute it to you," said Elizabeth, slowly, but with some indignation. "I never in my life believed, I never shall believe, that you cared in the least whether I was rich or poor."

Percival paused, as if he had met with an unexpected check, and then went off into a fit of rather forced laughter.

"So you never thought that," he said. "And that was the only motive that occurred to you? Then, perhaps you will kindly tell me the story as it was told to you, for you seem to have had a special edition. Has Dino Vasari been down here?"

She gave him a short account of the events that had occurred at Netherglen, and she noticed that as he listened, he forgot to smoke his cigar, and that he leaned his elbow on the arm of the great chair, and shaded his eyes with his hand. There was a certain suppressed eagerness in his manner, as he turned round when she had finished, and said, with lifted eyebrows:--

"Is that all?"

"What else do you know?" said Elizabeth.

He rubbed his hand impatiently backwards and forwards on the arm of the chair, and did not speak for a moment.

"What does Colquhoun advise you to do?" he asked, presently.

"To wait here until Brian Luttrell is found and brought home."

"Brought home. They think he will come?"

"Oh, yes. Why not? When everybody knows that he is alive there will be no possible reason why he should stay away. In fact, if he is a right-thinking man, he will see that justice requires him to come home at once."

"I should not think, myself, that he was a right-thinking man," said Percival, without looking at her.

"Because he allowed himself to be thought dead?" said Elizabeth, watching him as he relighted his cigar. "But, then, he was in such terrible trouble--and the opportunity offered itself, and seemed so easy. Poor fellow! I was always very sorry for him."

"Were you?"

"Yes. His mother, at least, Mrs. Luttrell, for I suppose she is not his mother really, must have been very cruel. From all that I have heard he was the last man to be jealous of his brother, or to wish any harm to him."

"In short, you are quite prepared to look upon him as a _heros de roman_, and worship him as such when he appears. Possibly you may think there is some reason in Dino Vasari's naive suggestion that you should marry Mr. Luttrell and prevent any division of the property."

"A suggestion which, from you, Percival, is far more insulting than that of the motive which I did not attribute to you," said Elizabeth, with spirit.

"You wouldn't marry Brian Luttrell, then?"

"Percival!"

"Not under any consideration? Well, tell me so. I like to hear you say it."

Elizabeth was silent.

"Tell me so," he said, stretching out his hand to her, and looking at her attentively, "and I will tell you the reason of my week's silence."

"I have no need to tell you so," she answered, in a suppressed voice.