"And if I did you would not trust me."

"No," he said, drily, "perhaps not; but promise me, all the same, that under no circumstances will you ever marry Brian Luttrell."

"I promise," she said, in a low tone of humiliation. Her eyes were full of tears. "And now let me go, Percival. I cannot stay with you--when you say that you trust me so little."

He had taken advantage of her rising to seize her hand. He now tossed his cigar into the fire, and rose, too, still holding her hand in his.

He looked down at her quivering lips, her tear-filled eyes, with gathering intensity of emotion. Then he put both arms round her, pressed her to his breast with passionate vehemence, and kissed her again and again, on cheek, lip, neck, and brow. She shivered a little, but did not protest.

"There!" he said, suddenly putting her away from him, and standing erect with the black frowning line very strongly marked upon his forehead. "I will tell you now why I did not try to keep Brian Luttrell in England. I knew that I ought to make a row about it. I knew that I was bound in honour to write to Colquhoun, to you, to Mrs. Luttrell, to any of the people concerned. And I didn't do it. I didn't precisely mean not to do it, but I wanted to shift the responsibility. I thought it was other people's business to keep him in England: not mine. As a matter of fact, I suppose it was mine. What do you say?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth, lifting her lovely, grieved eyes to his stormy face. "I think it was partly yours."

"Well, I didn't do it, you see," said Percival. "I was a brute and a cad, I suppose. But it seemed fatally easy to hold one's tongue. And now he has gone to America."

"But he can be brought back again, Percival."

"If he will come. I fancy that it will take a strong rope to drag him back. You want to know the reason for my silence? It isn't far to seek.

Brian Luttrell and the tutor, Stretton, who fell in love with you, were one and the same person. That's all."

And then he walked straight out of the room, and left her to her own reflections.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

PERCIVAL'S ATONEMENT.

Percival felt a decided dread of his next meeting with Elizabeth. He could not guess what would be the effect of his information upon her mind, nor what would be her opinion of his conduct. He was in a state of exasperating uncertainty about her views. The only thing of which he was sure was her love and respect for truthfulness; he did not know whether she would ever forgive any lapse from it. "Though, if it comes to that,"

he said to himself, as he finished his morning toilet, "she ought to be as angry with Stretton as she is with me; for he took her in completely, and, as for me, I only held my tongue. I suppose she will say that 'the motive was everything.' Which confirms me in my belief that one man may steal a horse, while the other may not look over the wall." And then he went down to breakfast.

He was late, of course; when was he not late for breakfast? The whole family-party had assembled; even Mrs. Heron was downstairs to welcome her step-son. Percival responded curtly enough to their greetings; his eyes and ears and thoughts were too much taken up with Elizabeth to be bestowed on the rest of the family. And Elizabeth, after all, looked much as usual. Perhaps there was a little unwonted colour in her cheek, and life in her eye; she did not look as if she had not slept, or had had bad dreams; there was rather an unusually restful and calm expression upon her face.

"Confound the fellow!"--thus Percival mentally apostrophised the missing Brian Luttrell. "One would think that she was glad of what I told her."

He was thoroughly put out by this reflection, and munched his breakfast in sulky silence, listening cynically to his step-mother's idle utterances and Kitty's vivacious replies. He was conscious of some disinclination to meet Elizabeth's tranquil glance, of which he bitterly resented the tranquillity. And she scarcely spoke, except to the children.

"I wonder how poor Mrs. Luttrell is to-day," Isabel Heron was saying.

"It is sad that she should be so ill."

"Yes, I wondered yesterday what was the matter, when I met Hugo," said Kitty. "He looked quite pale and serious. He was staying at Dunmuir, he told me. I suppose he does not find the house comfortable while his aunt is ill."

"Rather a cold-blooded young fellow, if he can consider that," said Mr.

Heron. "Mrs. Luttrell has always been very kind to him, I believe."

"Perhaps he is tired of Netherglen," said Kitty. ("Nobody knows anything about the story of the two Brian Luttrells, then!" Percival reflected, with surprise. "Elizabeth has a talent for silence when she chooses.") Kitty went on carelessly, "Netherglen is damp in this weather. I don't think I should care to live there." Then she blushed a little, as though some new thought had occurred to her.

"The weather is growing quite autumnal," said Mrs. Heron, languidly. "We ought to return to town, and make our preparations----" She looked with a sly smile from Percival to Elizabeth, and paused. "When is it to be, Lizzie?"

Elizabeth drew up her head haughtily and said nothing. Percival glanced at her, and drew no good augury from the cold offence visible in her face. There was an awkward silence, which Mrs. Heron thought it better to dispel by rising from the table.

Percival smoked his morning cigar on the terrace with his father, and wondered whether Elizabeth was not going to present herself and talk to him. He was ready to be very penitent and make every possible sign of submission to her wishes, for he felt that he had wronged her in his mind, and that she might justly be offended with him if she guessed his thoughts. He paced up and down, looking in impatiently at the windows from time to time, but still she came not. At last, standing disconsolately in the porch, he saw her passing through the hall with little Jack in her arms, and the other boys hanging on to her dress, quite in the old Gower-street fashion.

"Elizabeth, won't you come out?" he said.

"I can't, just now. I am going to give the children some lessons. I do that, first thing."

"Always?"

"Ever since Mr. Stretton left," she said.

"Give them a holiday. I want you. There are lots of things we have to talk about."

"Are there? I thought there was nothing left to say," said she, sweetly but coldly. "But I am going to Dunmuir at half-past two this afternoon, and you can drive down with me if you like."

She passed on, and shut herself into the study with the children.

Percival felt injured. "She should not have brought me all the way from London if she had nothing to say," he grumbled. "I'll go back to-night.

And I might as well go and see Colquhoun this morning."

He went down to Mr. Colquhoun's office, and was not received very cordially by that gentleman. The interview resulted in rather a violent quarrel, which ended by Percival being requested to leave Mr.

Colquhoun's presence, and not return to it uninvited. Mr. Colquhoun could not easily forgive him for neglecting to inform the Luttrells, at the earliest opportunity, of Brian's reappearance. "We should have saved time, money, anxiety: we might have settled the matter without troubling Miss Murray, or agitating Mrs. Luttrell; and I call it downright dishonesty to have concealed a fact which was of such vital importance,"

said Mr. Colquhoun, who had lost his temper. And Percival flung himself out of the room in a rage.

He was still inwardly fuming when he seated himself beside Elizabeth that afternoon in a little low carriage drawn by two grey ponies--an equipage which she specially affected--in order to drive to Dunmuir. For full five minutes neither of them spoke, but at last Elizabeth said, with a faint accent of surprise:--

"I thought you had something to say to me."

"I have so many things that I don't know where to begin. Have you nothing to say--about what I told you last night?"

"I can only say that I am very glad of it."

"The deuce you are!" thought Percival, but his lips were sealed.

Elizabeth went on to explain herself.

"I am glad, because now I understand various things that were very hard for me to understand before. I can see why Mr. Stretton hesitated about coming here; I see why he was startled when he discovered that I was the very girl whom he must have heard of before he left England. Of course, I should never have objected to surrender the property to its rightful owner; but in this case I shall be not only willing but pleased to give it back."

Her tone was proud and independent. Percival did not like it, but would not say so.

"I was saying last night," she continued, "that Brian Luttrell must come back. This discovery makes his return all the more necessary. I am going now to ask Mr. Colquhoun what steps had better be taken for bringing him home."

"Do you think he will come?"

"He must come. He must be made to see that it is right for him to come.

I have been thinking of what I will ask Mr. Colquhoun to say to him. If he remembers me"--and her voice sank a little--"he will not refuse to do what would so greatly lighten my burden."

"Better write yourself, Elizabeth," said Percival, in a sad yet cynical tone. "You can doubtless say what would bring him back by the next steamer."

She made no answer, but set her lips a little more firmly, and gave one of the grey ponies a slight touch with the whip. It was the silence that caused Percival to see that she was wounded.