warmth than usual when she said good-night. She had seldom
kissed her sons after they reached manhood; but she caressed Hugo very
frequently. She was softer in her manner with him than she had been even
with Richard.

"Take care of yourself in London," she said to him. "Do you want any
money?"

"No, thank you, Aunt Margaret. I shall be back in three days if I start
to-morrow--at least, I think so. I'll telegraph if I am detained."

"Yes, do so. To-morrow is the seventeenth. You will be back by the
twentieth?"

"If my business is done," said Hugo. And then he went back to his little
experiments in caligraphy.

It was not until the afternoon of the 18th of August that he found
himself at the door of No. 14, Tarragon-street. It was a dingy-looking
house in a dismal-looking street. Hugo shivered a little as he pulled
the tarnished bell-handle. "How can people live in streets like this?"
he said to himself, with a slight contemptuous shrug of his shoulders.

"Mr. Vasari?" he said, interrogatively, as a downcast-looking woman came
to the door.

"Yes, sir. What name, sir, if you please?"

"Say that a gentleman from Scotland wishes to see him."

The woman gave him a keen look, as if she knew something of the errand
upon which Dino Vasari had come to her house; but said nothing, and
ushered him at once into a sitting-room on the ground-floor. The room
was curtained so heavily that it seemed nearly dark. Hugo could not see
whether it was tenanted by more than one person; of one he was sure,
because that one person came to meet him with outstretched hands and
eager words of greeting.

"Mr. Luttrell! You have come, then; you have come--I knew you would!"

"I beg your pardon," said Hugo, and at the sound of his voice the first
speaker fell back amazed; "but I am Hugo Luttrell--not Brian. I come
from him."

"A thousand pardons; this English darkness is to blame," said the other,
in fluent English speech, though with a slightly foreign accent. "Let us
have lights; then we can know each other. I am--Dino Vasari."

He said the name with a certain hesitation, as though not sure whether
or no he ought to call himself by it. The light of a candle fell
suddenly upon the two faces--which were turned towards one another in
some curiosity. The two had a kind of superficial likeness of feature,
but a total dissimilarity of expression. The subtlety of Hugo's eyes and
mouth was never shown more clearly than when contrasted with t