"As for your brother," said Hugo, with a sneer, "he is not very likely to come home again at all. His ship has been wrecked, and all lives lost. As for your father----"

He was interrupted by a passionate cry from the girl's pale lips.

"Wrecked! Percival's ship lost! Oh, it cannot be true!"

"It is true enough--at least report says so. It may be a false report!"

"It must be a false report! You would not have the heart to tell me the news so cruelly if it were true! But no, I forgot. You made me believe that my father was dying; you do not mind being cruel. Still, I don't believe you. I shall never again believe a word you say. Oh! Percival, Percival!" And then, to prove how little she believed him, Kitty burst into tears, and pressed her handkerchief to her face. Hugo stood and watched her earnestly, and she, on looking up, found his eyes fixed upon her. The gaze brought back all her ire. "Order the carriage for me at once, and let me go out of your sight," she said. "I cannot bear to look at you!"

Kitty was not dignified in her wrath, but she was so pretty that Hugo's lips curled with a smile of enjoyment. At the same time he felt that he must bring her to a sense of her position. She had not as yet the least notion of what he meant to require of her. And it would be better that she should understand. He folded his arms and leant against the door as he spoke.

"You are not going away just yet," he said. "I have got my pretty bird caged at last, and she may beat her wings against the bars as much as she pleases, but she will not leave her cage until she is a little tamer than she is now. When she can sing to the tune I will teach her, I will let her go."

"What do you mean?" said Kitty. "Stand away from the door, Mr. Luttrell.

I want to pass."

"I will stand aside presently and let you go--as far as the doors will let you. But just now you must listen to me."

"I will not listen. I will call the servants," she said, pulling a bell-handle which she had found beside the mantelpiece.

"Ring as much as you please. Nobody will come. The bell-wire has been cut."

"Then I will call. Somebody must hear."

"My man, Stevens, may hear, perhaps. But he will not come unless I summon him."

"But the other servants----"

"There are no other servants in this part of the house. The kitchen-maid and the nurse sleep close to Mrs. Luttrell's room--so far away that not your loudest scream would reach their ears. You are in my power, Kitty.

I could kill you if I liked, and nobody could interfere."

What strange light was that within his eyes? Was it the light of madness or of love? For the first time Kitty was seized with positive fear of him. She listened, the colour dying out of her face, and her eyes slowly dilating with terror as she heard what he had to say.

"I will tell you now what I have done," he said, "and then I will ask you, once more, to forgive me. It is your own fault if I love you madly, wildly, as I do. You led me on. You let me tell you that I loved you; you seemed to care for me too, sometimes. By the time that you had made up your mind, to throw me over, Kitty, my love had grown into a passion that must be satisfied. There are two ways in which, it can end, and two only. I might kill you--other men of my race have killed the women who trifled with them and deceived them. I could forgive you for what you have made me suffer, if I saw you lying dead at my feet, child; that is the first way. And the second--be mine--be my wife; that is the better way."

"Never!" said Kitty, firmly, although her white lips quivered with an unspoken fear. "Kill me, if you like. I would rather be killed than be your wife now."

"Ah, but I do not want to kill you!" cried Hugo, his dark face lighting up with a sudden glow, which made it hatefully brilliant and beautiful, even in Kitty's frightened eyes. He left the door and came towards her, holding out his hands and gesticulating as he spoke. "I want you to be my wife, my own sweet flower, my exquisite bird, for whom no cage can be half too fine! I want you to be mine; my own darling----. I would give Heaven and earth for that; I have already risked all that makes life worth living. Men love selfishly; but you shall be loved as no other woman was ever loved. You shall be my queen, my angel, my wife!"

"I will die first," said Kitty. Before he could interpose, she snatched a knife from the table, and held it with the point turned towards him.

"Come a step nearer," she cried, "and I shall know how to defend myself."

Hugo stopped short. "You little fool!" he said, angrily. "Put the knife down."

She thought that he was afraid; and, still holding her weapon, she made a rush for the door; but Hugo caught her skilfully by the wrists, disarmed her, and threw the knife to the other end of the room. Then he made her sit down in an arm-chair near the fire, and without relaxing his hold upon her arm, addressed her in cool but forcible tones.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said. "You need not be so frightened or so foolish. I won't come near you, unless you give me leave. I am going to have your full and free consent, my little lady, before I make you my wife. But, this I want you to understand. I have you here--a prisoner; and a prisoner you will remain until you do consent. Nobody knows where you are--nobody will look for you here. You cannot escape; and if you could escape, nobody would believe your story. Do you hear?"

He took away his hand from her arm. But she did not try to move. She was trembling from head to foot. He looked at her silently for a little time, and then withdrew to the door.

"I will leave you now until to-morrow," he said, quietly. "There is a girl--a kitchen-maid--who will bring you your breakfast in the morning.

You have this little wing of the house entirely to yourself, but I don't think that you will find any means of getting out of it. Good-night, my darling. You will forgive me yet."

CHAPTER XLIV.

HUGO'S VICTORY.

Kitty remained for some time in the state in which Hugo left her. She was only faintly conscious of his departure. The shutting of the baize door, and of another door beyond it, scarcely penetrated to her brain.

She fancied that Hugo was still standing over her with a wild light in his eyes and the sinister smile upon his lips; and she dared not look up to see if the fancy were true. A sick, faint feeling came over her, and made her all the more disinclined to move.

The fire, which had been burning hollow and red, fell in at last with a great crash; and the noise startled her into full consciousness. She sat erect in her chair, and looked about her fearfully. No, Hugo was not there. He had left the door of the room a little way open. With a shuddering desire to protect herself, she staggered to the door, closed it, looked for a key or a bolt, and found none; then sank down again upon a chair, and tried seriously to consider the position in which she found herself.

There was not much comfort to be gained out of the reflections which occurred to her. If she was as much in Hugo's power as he represented her to be, she was in evil case, indeed. She thought over the arrangements which he seemed to have planned so carefully, and she saw that they were all devised so as to make it appear that she had been in the secret, that she had met him and gone away with him willingly. And her disappearance might not be made known for days. Mrs. Baxter would suppose that she was with her relations; her relations would think that she was still in Edinburgh. Inquiries might be made in the course of three or four days; but even if they were made so soon, they would probably be fruitless. The woman at the waiting-room, whose stare Kitty had resented, would perhaps give evidence that the gentleman had called her his "dearest," and taken her away with him in his carriage. She thought it all too likely that Hugo had planned matters so as to make everybody, believe that she had eloped with him of her own free-will.

If escape were only possible! Surely there was some window, some door, by which she could leave the house! She would not mind a little danger.

Better a broken bone or two than the fate which would await her as Hugo's wife--or as Hugo's prisoner. She turned to the window with a resolute step, drew aside the curtains, unbarred the shutters, and looked out.

Disappointment awaited her. There was a long space of wall, and then the pointed roofs of some outhouses, which hid the courtyard and the road entirely from her sight. Beyond the roofs she could see the tops of trees, which, it was plain, would entirely conceal any view of her window from passers-by. It would be quite impossible to climb down to those sharp-gabled roofs; and, as if to make assurance doubly sure, the window was protected by strong iron bars, between which nobody could have squeezed more than an arm or foot. Moreover, the sash was nailed down. Kitty dropped the curtain with a despairing sigh.

After a little hesitation, she took a candle and opened the sitting-room door. All was dark in the passage outside; but from the top of the flight of stairs leading to a higher storey, she could distinguish a glimmer of light which seemed to come from a window in the roof. She went up the stairs and found two tiny rooms; one a lumber-room, the other a bed-room. These were just underneath the roof, and had tiny triangular windows, which were decidedly too small to allow of anyone's escaping through them. Kitty peered through them both, and got a good view of the loch, glimmering whitely in the starlight between its black, wooded shores. She retraced her steps, and explored an empty room on the floor with her sitting-room, the window of which was also barred and nailed down. Then she went down the lower flight of steps until she came to a closed door, which had been securely fastened from the outside by the man who brought up her box. She shook it and beat it with her little fists; but all in vain. Nobody seemed to hear her knocks; or, if heard, they were disregarded. She tried the baize door with like ill-success.

Hugo had said the truth; she was a prisoner.

At last, tired and disheartened, she crept back to her sitting-room. The fire was nearly out, and the night was a cold one. She muffled herself in her cloak and crouched down upon the sofa, crying bitterly. She thought herself too nervous, too excited, to sleep at all; and she certainly did not sleep for two or three hours. But exhaustion came at last, and, although she still started at the slightest sound, she fell into a doze, and thence into a tolerably sound slumber, which lasted until daylight looked in at the unshuttered window, and the baize door moved upon its hinges to admit the girl who was to act as Miss Heron's maid.

The very sight of a girl--a woman like herself--brought hope to Kitty's mind. She started up, pressing her hands to her brow and pushing back the disordered hair. Then she addressed the girl with eager, persuasive words. But the kitchen-maid only shook her head. "Dinna ye ken that I'm stane-deef?" she said, pointing to her ears with a grin. For a moment Kitty in despair desisted from her efforts. Then she thought of another argument. She produced her purse, and showed the girl some sovereigns, then led her to the door, intimating by signs that she would give her the money if she would but open it. The girl seemed to understand, but laughed again and shook her head. "Na, na," she said. "I daurna lat ye oot sae lang's the maister's here." Hugo's coadjutors were apparently incorruptible.

The kitchen-maid proved herself equal to all the work required of her.

She relighted the fire, cleared away the uneaten supper, and brought breakfast and hot water. Kitty discovered that everything she required was handed to the girl through a sliding panel in the door at the bottom of the stairs. There was no chance of escape through any chance opening of the door.

She had no appetite, but she knew that she ought to eat in order to keep up her strength and courage. She therefore drank some coffee, and ate the scones which the maid brought her. The girl then took away the breakfast-things, put fresh fuel on the fire, and departed by the lower door. Kitty would have kept her if she could. Even a deaf kitchen-maid was better than no company at all.

The view from the windows was no more encouraging by day than night.

There seemed to be no way of communicating with the outer world. A letter flung from either storey would only reach the slanting roofs below, and lie on the slates until destroyed by snow and rain. Kitty doubted whether her voice would reach the courtyard, even if she raised it to its highest pitch. She tried it from the attic window, but it seemed to die away in the heights, and she could hardly hope that it had been heard by anyone either inside or outside the house.

She was left alone for some time. About noon, as she was standing by her window, straining her eyes to discover some trace of a human being in the distance, whose attention she perhaps might catch if one could only be seen, she heard the door open and close again. She knew the footstep: it was neither that of the deaf girl nor of the man Stevens. It was Hugo Luttrell coming once more to plead his cause or lay his commands upon her.

She turned round unwillingly and glanced at him with a faint hope that the night might have brought him to some change of purpose. But although the excitement of the previous evening had disappeared, there was no sign of relenting in his face. He came up to her and tried to take her hand.

"_Nuit porte conseil_," he began. "Have you thought better of last night's diversions? Have you arrived at any decision yet?"

"Oh, Hugo," she burst out, clasping her hands, "don't speak to me in that sneering, terrible way. Have a little pity upon me. Let me go home!"

"You shall go home to-morrow, if you will go as my wife, Kitty."

"But you know that can never be," she expostulated. "How can you expect me to be your wife after all that you have made me suffer? Do you think I could ever love you as a wife should do? You would be miserable; and I--I--should break my heart." She burst into tears as she concluded, and wrung her hands together.