"Who is with Vivian and your brother?" he demanded "Has Brian Luttrell come back?"

But he could not make her answer him. His hand was no longer on her arm, and with a desperate effort of will, she fled with sudden swiftness from him towards the house. He stood and watched her, with a look of sullen anger darkening his face. "She is not to be trusted," he muttered to himself. "I must finish my work to-night."

CHAPTER L.

MRS. LUTTRELL'S ROOM.

Kitty made her way to her own room, and was not surprised to find that in a few moments Hugo followed her thither. She was sitting in a low chair, striving to command her agitated thoughts, and school herself into some semblance of tranquility, when he entered. She fully expected that he would try again to force from her the history of her interview with Vivian, but he did nothing of the kind. He threw himself into a chair opposite to her, and looked at her in silence, while she tried her best not to see his face at all. Those long, lustrous eyes, that low brow and perfectly-modelled mouth and chin, had grown hideous in her sight.

But when he spoke he took her completely by surprise.

"You had better begin to pack up your things," he said. "We shall go to the South of France either this week or next."

"And leave Mrs. Luttrell?" breathed Kitty.

His lips stretched themselves into something meant for a smile, but it was a very joyless smile.

"And leave Mrs. Luttrell," he repeated.

"But, Hugo, what will people say?"

"They won't find fault," he answered. "The matter will be simple enough when the time comes. Pack your boxes, and leave the rest to me."

"She is much better, certainly," hesitated Kitty, "but I do not like leaving her to servants."

"She is no better," said Hugo, rising, and turning a malevolent look upon her. "She is worse. Don't let me hear you say again that she is better. She is dying."

With these words he left the room. Kitty leaned back in her chair, for she was seized with a fit of trembling that made her unable to rise or speak. Something in the tone of Hugo's speech had frightened her. She was unreasonably suspicious, perhaps, but she had developed a great fear of Hugo's evil designs. He had shown her plainly enough that he had no principle, no conscience, no sense of shame. And she feared for Mrs.

Luttrell.

Her fears did not go very far. She thought that Hugo was capable of sending away the nurse, or of depriving Mrs. Luttrell of care and comfort to such an extent as to shorten her life. She could not suspect Hugo of an intention to commit actual, flagrant crime. Yet some undefined terror of him had made her beg Vivian to tell Brian and his wife to come home as soon as possible. She did not know what might happen. She was afraid; and at any rate she wanted to secure her husband against temptation. He might thank her for it afterwards, perhaps, though Kitty did not think that he ever would.

She went upstairs after dinner to sit with Mrs. Luttrell, as she usually did at that hour. The poor woman was perceptibly better. The look of recognition in her eyes was not so painfully beseeching as it had been hitherto; the hand which Kitty took in hers gently returned her pressure. She muttered the only word that her lips seemed able to speak:--"Brian! Brian!"

"He is coming," said Kitty, bending her head so that her lips almost touched the withered cheek. "He is coming--coming soon."

A wonderful light of satisfaction stole into the melancholy eyes. Again she pressed Kitty's hand. She was content.

The nurse generally returned to Mrs. Luttrell's room after her supper; and Kitty waited for some time, wondering why she was so long in coming.

She rang the bell at last and enquired for her. The maid replied that Mrs. Samson, the nurse, had been taken ill and had gone to bed. Kitty then asked for the housekeeper, and the maid went away to summon her.

Again Kitty waited; but no housekeeper came.

She was about to ring the bell a second time, when her husband entered the room. "What do you want with the housekeeper at this time of night?"

he asked, carelessly.

Kitty explained. Hugo raised his eyebrows. "Oh, is that all?" he said.

"Really, Kitty, you make too much fuss about my aunt. She will do well enough. I won't have poor old Shairp called up from her bed to sit here till morning."

"But somebody must stay," said Kitty, whom her husband had drawn into the little dressing-room. "Mrs. Luttrell must not be left alone."

"She shall not be left alone, my dear; I'll take care of that. I have seen Samson, hearing that she was ill, and find that it is only a fit of sickness, which is passing off. She will be here in half-an-hour; or, if not, Shairp can be called."

"Then I will stay here until one of them comes," said Kitty.

"You will do nothing of the kind. You will go to bed at once. It is ten o'clock, and I don't want you to spoil that charming complexion of yours by late hours." He spoke with a sort of sneer, but immediately passed his finger down her delicate cheek with a tenderly caressing gesture, as if to make up for the previous hardness of his tone. Kitty shrank away from him, but he only smiled and continued softly: "Those pretty eyes must not be dimmed by want of sleep. Go to bed, _ma belle_, and dream of me."

"Let me stay for a little while," entreated Kitty. "If Mrs. Samson comes in half-an-hour I shall not be tired. Just till then, Hugo."

"Not at all, my little darling." His tone was growing quite playful, and he even imprinted a light kiss upon her cheek as he went on. "I will wait here myself until Samson comes, and if she is not better I will summon Mrs. Shairp. Will that not satisfy you?"

"Why should you stay?" said Kitty, in a whisper. A look of dread had come into her eyes.

"Why should I not?" smiled Hugo. "Aunt Margaret likes to have me with her, and she is not likely to want anything just now. Run away, my fair Kitty. I will call you if I really need help."

What did Kitty suspect? She turned white and suddenly put her arms round her husband's neck, bringing his beautiful dark face down to her own.

"Let me stay," she murmured in his ear. "I am afraid. I don't know exactly what I am afraid of; but I want to stay. I can't leave her to-night."

He put her away from him almost roughly. A sinister look crossed his face.

"You are a little fool: you always were," he said; fiercely. Then he tried to regain the old smoothness of tongue which so seldom failed him; but this time he found it difficult. "You are nervous," he said. "You have been sitting in a sick-room too long: I must not let you over-tire yourself. You will be better when we leave Netherglen. Go and dream of blue skies and sunny shores: we will see my native land together, Kitty, and forget this desert of a place. There, go now. I will take care of Aunt Margaret."

He put her out at the door, still with the silky, caressing manner that she distrusted, still with the false smile stereotyped upon his face.

Then he went back into the dressing-room and closed the door.

Kitty went to her own room, and changed her evening dress for a dressing-gown of soft, dark red cashmere which did not rustle as she moved. She was resolved against going to bed, at any rate until Hugo had left Mrs. Luttrell's room. She sat down and waited.

The clock struck eleven. She could bear the suspense no longer. She went out into the passage and listened at the door of Mrs. Luttrell's room.

Not a sound: not a movement to be heard.

She stole away to the room which the nurse occupied. Mrs. Samson was lying on her bed, breathing heavily: she seemed to be in a sound sleep.

Kitty shook her by the arm; but the woman only moaned and moved uneasily, then snored more stertorously than before. The thought crossed Kitty's mind that, perhaps, Hugo had not wanted Mrs. Samson to be awake.

She made up her mind to go to the housekeeper's room. It was situated in that wing of the house which Kitty had once learnt to know only too well. For some reason or other Hugo had insisted lately upon the servants taking up their sleeping quarters in this wing; and although Mrs. Shairp, who had returned to Netherglen upon his marriage, protested that it was very inconvenient--"because no sound from the other side of the house could reach their ears"--(how well Kitty remembered her saying this!) yet even she had been obliged to give way to Hugo's will.

Kitty went to the door that communicated with the wing. She turned the handle: it would not open. She shook it, and even knocked, but she dared not make much noise. It was not a door that could be fastened or unfastened from inside. Someone in the main part of the house, therefore, must necessarily have turned the key and taken it away. One thing was evident: the servants had been locked into their own rooms, and it was quite impossible for Mrs. Shairp to come to her mistress's room, unless the person who fastened the door came and unfastened it again.

"I wonder that he did not lock me in," said Kitty to herself, wringing her little hands as she came hopelessly down the great staircase into the hall, and then up again to her own room. She had no doubt but that it was Hugo who had done this thing for some end of his own. "What does he mean? What is it that he does not want us to know?"

She reached her own room as she asked this question of herself. The door resisted her hand as the door of the servants' wing had done. It was locked, too. Hugo--or someone else--had turned the key, thinking that she was safe in her own room, and wishing to keep her a prisoner until morning.

Kitty's blood ran cold. Something was wrong: some dark intention must be in Hugo's mind, or he would not have planned so carefully to keep the household out of Mrs. Luttrell's room. She remembered that she had seen a light in a bed-room near Hugo's own--the room where Stevens usually slept. Should she rouse him and ask for his assistance? No: she knew that this man was a mere tool of Hugo's; she could not trust him to help her against her husband's will. There was nothing for it but to do what she could, without help from anyone. She would be brave for Mrs.

Luttrell's sake, although she had not been brave for her own.