the law in motion, and take
steps towards dispossessing Miss Murray.

"I write all this to you at Dino's own request. I grieve to say that he
is occasionally headstrong to a degree which gives us pain and anxiety.
He refused to take any steps in the matter until I had communicated with
you, because he says that if you intend to make yourself known by your
former name, and take back the property which accrued to you upon Mr.
Richard Luttrell's death, he will not stand in your way. I have pointed
out to him, as I now point out to you, that this line of action would be
dishonest, and practically impossible, because, in his interests, we
should then take the matter up and make the facts public, but he insists
upon my mentioning the proposal. I mention it in full confidence that
your generosity and sense of honour will alike prevent you from putting
obstacles in the way of my pupil's recognition by his mother and
succession to his inheritance.

"If you wish that Dino (as for the sake of convenience I will still call
him) should be restored to his rights, and if you desire to show that
you have no ill-feeling towards him on account of this proposed
endeavour to recover what is really his own, he begs you to meet him on
his arrival in London on the 18th of August. He will be in lodgings kept
by a good Catholic friend of ours at No. 14, Tarragon-street,
Russell-square, and you will inquire for him by the name of Mr. Vasari,
as he will not assume the name of Brian Luttrell until he has seen you.
He will, of course, be in secular dress.

"I have now made you master of all necessary facts. If I have done so
under protest, it is no concern of yours. I earnestly recommend you to
give up your residence in Scotland, and to return, at any rate until
this matter is settled, to San Stefano. I need hardly say that Brian
Luttrell will never let you know the necessity of such drudgery as that
in which you have lately been engaged.

"With earnest wishes for your welfare, and above all for your speedy
return to the bosom of the true Catholic Church in which you were
baptised, and of which I hope to see you one day account yourself a
faithful child, I remain, my dear son,

"Your faithful friend and father,
"Cristoforo Donaldi,
"Prior of the Monastery of San Stefano."

CHAPTER XX.

"MISCHIEF, THOU ART AFOOT."

Hugo's meditations were long and deep. More than an hour elapsed before
he roused himself from the though