such a pace that it seemed as if he
had entirely lost control over them. But he was a very good whip, and
soon mastered the fiery creatures, reducing their mad speed by degrees
to a gentle trot, which enabled the groom to overtake them, panting and
red in the face, indeed, as he swung himself up behind. The groom was
inclined to think that Mr. Hugo had lost his nerve for a few moments;
for "his face turned as white," honest John remarked afterwards, "as if
he had seen a ghost."

"John," said Hugo, after driving for a good two miles in silence, "who
was that gentleman at the station door?"

"Gentleman, sir?"

"A young man--at least, he seemed young--in a great-coat."

"Oh!--I don't think that's a young gentleman, exactly; least-ways he's
got grey hair. That's the gentleman that teaches at Mr. Heron's, sir;
Mr. Heron, the uncle to Miss Murray that has the property now. His
name's Mr. Stretton, sir. I asked Mr. Heron's coachman."

"What made you ask?"

The groom hesitated and shuffled; but, upon being kept sharply to the
point, avowed that it was because the gentleman "seen from behind"
looked so much like Mr. Brian Luttrell. "Of course, his face is quite
different from Mr. Brian's, sir," he said, hastily, noting a shadow upon
Hugo's brow; "and he has grey hair and a beard, and all that; but his
walk was a little like poor Mr. Brian's, sir, I thought."

Hugo was silent. He had not noticed the man's gait, but, in spite of the
grey hair, the tanned complexion, the brown beard--which had lately been
allowed to cover the lower part of Mr. Stretton's face, and had changed
it very greatly--in spite of all these things he had noticed, and been
startled by, the expression of a pair of grave, brown eyes--graver and
sadder than Brian's eyes used to be, but full of the tenderness and the
sweetness that Hugo had never seen in the face of any other man. Full,
also, of recognition; there was the rub. A man who knows you cannot look
at you in the same way as one who knows you not, and it was this look of
knowledge which had unnerved Hugo, and make him doubt the evidence of
his own senses.

He was still silent and absorbed when he arrived at Netherglen, and felt
glad to hear that he was not to see his aunt until later in the day.
Angela came to meet him at the door; she was pale, and her black dress
made her look very slender and fragile, but she had the old, sweet smile
and pleasant words of welcome for him, and could not under