matter of that! I
have made up my mind that I will not benefit by Richard's death. Others
may have the use of his wealth, but I am the last that should touch it.
I will have the two or three hundred a year that he used to give me, and
I will have nothing more."

Hugo's face had grown pale. He looked more dismayed by this utterance
than by anything that Brian as yet had said. He opened his lips once or
twice before he could find his voice, and it was in curiously rough and
broken tones that he at length asked a question.

"Is this because of what people say about--about you--and--Richard?"

He seemed to find it difficult to pronounce the dead man's name. Brian
lifted up his face.

"What do people say about me and Richard, then?" he said.

Hugo retreated a little.

"If you don't know," he said, looking down miserably, "I can't tell
you."

Brian's eyes blazed with sudden wrath.

"You have said too little or too much," he said. "I must know the rest.
What is it that people say?"

"Don't you know?"

"No, I do not know. Out with it."

"I can't tell you," said Hugo, biting his lips. "Don't ask me, ask
someone else. Anyone."

"Is 'anyone' sure to know? I will hear it from you, and from no one
else. What do people say?"

Hugo looked up at him and then down again. The struggle that was waging
between the powers of good and evil in his soul had its effect even on
his outer man. His very lips turned white as he considered what he
should say.

Brian noted this change of colour, and was moved by it, thinking that he
understood Hugo's reluctance to give him pain. He subdued his own
impatience, and spoke in a lower, quieter voice.

"Don't take it to heart, Hugo, whatever it may be. It cannot be worse
than the thing I have heard already--from my mother. I don't suppose I
shall mind it much. They say, perhaps, that I--that I shot my
brother"--(in spite of himself, Brian's voice trembled with passionate
indignation)--"that I killed Richard purposely--knowing what I did--in
order to possess myself of this miserable estate of his--is that what
they say?"

Hugo answered by a bare little monosyllable--

"Yes."

"And who says this?"

"Everyone. The whole country side."

"Then--if this is believed so generally--why have no steps been taken to
prove my guilt? Good God, my guilt! Why should I not be prosecuted at
once for murder?"

"There would be no evidence, they say." Hugo murmured, uneasily. "It is
simply a matt