ement of Strathleckie; as well as of Netherglen, which belongs to
her. She will live here, and use the house and dispose of the revenues
as she pleases. Angela remains with her."

"But if you marry----"

"I shall never marry. My life is spoilt--ruined. I could not ask any
woman to share it with me. I shall be a wanderer on the face of the
earth--like Cain."

"No, no!" cried Hugo, passionately. "Not like Cain. There is no curse on
you----"

"Not even my mother's curse? I am not sure," said Brian. "I shall be a
wanderer, at any rate; so much is certain: living on my three hundred a
year, very comfortably, no doubt; until this life is over, and I come
out clear on the other side----"

Hugo lifted his face. "You don't mean," he whispered, with a look of
terrified suspicion, "that you would ever lay hands on yourself, and
shorten your life in that way?"

"Why, no. What makes you think that I should choose such a course? I
hope I am not a coward," said Brian, simply. "No, I shall live out my
days somewhere--somehow; but there is no harm in wishing that they were
over."

There was a pause. The dreamy expression of Brian's eyes seemed to
betoken that his thoughts were far away. Hugo moved his stick nervously
through the grass at his feet. He could not look up.

"What else have you to tell me?" he said at last.

"Do you know the way in which Strathleckie was settled?" said Brian,
quietly, coming down to earth from some high vision of other worlds and
other lives than ours. "Do you know that my grandfather made a curious
will about it?"

"No," said Hugo. It was false, for he knew the terms of the will quite
well; but he thought it more becoming to profess ignorance.

"This place belonged to my mother's father. It was left to her children
and their direct heirs; failing heirs, it reverts to a member of her
family, a man of the name of Gordon Murray. We have no power to alienate
any portion of it. The rents are ours, the house and lands are ours, for
our lives only. If we die, you see, without children, the property goes
to these Murrays."

"Cousins of yours, are they?"

"Second cousins. I have never troubled myself about the exact degree of
relationship until within the last day or two. I find that Gordon Murray
would be my second cousin once removed, and that his child or
children--he has more than one, I believe--would, therefore, be my third
cousins. A little while ago I should have thought it highly improbable