lla
Venturi, say nothing of Strathleckie?"

"He did not rent it. They were my guests."

"Your guests? And what are they now, then?"

"My guests still."

Brian rose to his feet.

"Then you are a rich woman?"

"Yes."

"It is you, perhaps, who have paid me for teaching these boys?"

"There is no disgrace in being paid for work that is worth doing and
that is done well," said Elizabeth, flashing an indignant look at him.

He bowed his head to the rebuke.

"You are right, Miss Murray. But you will, I hope, do me the justice to
see that I was perfectly ignorant of the state of affairs; that I was
blind--foolishly blind----"

"Not foolishly. You could not help it."

"I might have seen. I might have known. I took you for----" And there
Brian stopped, actually colouring at the thought of his mistake.

"For the poor relation; the penniless cousin. But it was most natural
that you should, and two years ago it would have been perfectly true. I
have not been a rich woman for very many months, and I do not love my
riches very much."

"If I had known," began Brian; and then he burst out with a sudden
change of tone. "Give them your riches, since they value them and you do
not, and give yourself to me, Elizabeth. Surely your debt to them would
then be paid."

"What! by recompensing kindness with treachery?" she said, glancing at
him mournfully. "No, that plan would not answer. The money is a small
part of what I owe them. But I do sometimes wish that it had gone to
anybody but me; especially when I remember the sad circumstances under
which it became mine. When I think of poor Mrs. Luttrell of Netherglen,
I have never felt as if it were right to spend her sons' inheritance in
what gave pleasure to myself alone."

"Mrs. Luttrell of ---- But what have you to do with her?" said Brian,
with a sudden fixity of feature and harshness of voice that alarmed
Elizabeth. "Mrs. Luttrell of Netherglen! Good Heaven! It is not
you--you--who inherited that property? The Luttrell-Murrays----"

"I am the only Luttrell-Murray living," said Elizabeth.

He stared at her dumbly, as if he could not believe his ears.

"And you have the Luttrell estate?" he said at last.

"I have."

"I am glad of it," he answered; and then he put his hand over his eyes
for a second or two, as if to shut out the light of day. "Yes, I am very
glad."

"What do you mean, Mr. Stretton?" said Elizabeth, who was watching him
intently. "Do you know anythin