et-book in his hand, and said vehemently--

"The young scoundrel! He shall rue it!"

While Brian, looking shocked and grieved, sat down on the stump of a
tree and muttered, "Poor lad!" between his teeth, as he contemplated the
miserable fragments on the ground.

The sound of a bell came faintly to their ears through the clear morning
air. Richard spoke sharply.

"We must leave the matter for the present. Don't say anything about it.
Lock up the boat-house, Brian, and keep the key. We'll have Hugo down
here after breakfast, and see whether he'll make a clean breast of it."

"He may know nothing at all about it," suggested Brian, rising from his
seat.

"It is to be hoped so," said Luttrell, curtly. He walked out of the
boat-house with frowning brows and sparkling eyes. "I know one thing--my
roof won't shelter him any longer if he is guilty." And then he marched
away to the house, leaving Brian to lock the door and follow at his
ease.

That morning's breakfast was long remembered in the Luttrells' house as
a period of vague and curious discomfort. The reddish light in Richard's
eyes was well known for a danger signal; a storm was in the air when he
wore that expression of suppressed emotion. Brian, a good deal disturbed
by what had occurred, scarcely spoke at all; he sat with his eyes fixed
on the table, forgetting to eat, and glancing only from time to time at
Hugo's young, beautiful, laughing face, as the lad talked gaily to a
visitor, or fed the dogs--privileged inmates of the dining-room--with
morsels from his own plate. It was impossible to think that this
handsome boy, just entering on the world, fresh from a military college,
with a commission in the Lancers, should have chosen to rob the very man
who had been his benefactor and friend, whose house had sheltered him
for the last ten years of his life. What could he have wanted with this
money? Luttrell made him a handsome allowance, had paid his bills more
than once, provided his outfit, put all the resources of his home at
Hugo's disposal, as if he had been a son of the house instead of a
penniless dependent--had, in short, behaved to him with a generosity
which Brian might have resented had he been of a resentful disposition,
seeing that he himself had been much less liberally treated. But Brian
never concerned himself about that view of the matter; only now, when he
suspected Hugo of dishonesty and ingratitude, did he run over in his
mind a list of the be