uest's identity with the missing Englishman. Brian answered with a
certain reluctance; he did not like the part that he would have to play.

"I lost my way in walking from V----," he said, mentioning a town at some
distance from the mountain-pass by which he had really come; "and my hat
was blown off by a gust of wind. The weather was not good. I lost my
way."

"True, monsieur. There was rain and there was wind: doubtless monsieur
wandered from the right track," said the innkeeper, accepting the
explanation in all good faith.

When he left the room, Brian examined his belongings with care. Nothing
in his possession was marked, owing to the fact that his clothes were
mostly new ones, purchased with a view to mountaineering requirements.
His pocket-book was lost. Mrs. Luttrell's letter and one or two other
papers, however, remained with him, and he had sufficient money in his
pockets to pay the innkeeper and preserve him from starvation for a
time. He wondered that nobody had reported an unknown traveller to be
lying ill in the village; but it was plain that his escape had been
thought impossible. Even Gunston had given him up for lost. As he learnt
afterwards, it was believed that he had not been able to sever the rope,
and that he, with one of the guides, had fallen into a crevasse. The
rope went straight down into the cleft, and he was believed to be at the
end of it. There was not the faintest doubt in the mind of the survivors
but that Brian Luttrell was dead. It remained for Brian himself to
decide whether he should go back to the town, reclaim his luggage, and
take up life again at the point where he seemed to have let it drop--or
go forth into the world, penniless and homeless, without a name, without
a hope for the future, and without a friend.

Which should he do?

CHAPTER XII.

THE HEIRESS OF STRATHLECKIE.

"Elizabeth an heiress! Elizabeth, with a fortune of her own!" said Mrs.
Heron. "It is perfectly incredible."

"It is perfectly true," rejoined her step-son. "And it has been true for
the last three days."

"Then Elizabeth does not know it," replied Kitty.

"As to whether she knows it or not," said Percival, sardonically, "I am
quite unable to form any opinion. Elizabeth has a talent for keeping
secrets."

He was not sorry that the door opened at that moment, and that
Elizabeth, entering with little Jack in her arms, must have heard his
words. She flashed a quick look at him--it was one