e
shall be angry with you. Listen, Hugo, Richard maybe angry at first, but
he is kind as well as just. He will forgive you, and we shall love you
as much as ever. I will tell him that you are sorry for whatever it is,
and then he will not refuse his pardon."

"I don't want it," said Hugo, hoarsely. "I hate him."

"Hugo!"

"I hate him--I loathe him. You would hate him, too, if you knew him as
well as I do. You are going to marry him! Well, you will be miserable
all your life long, and then you will remember what I say."

"I should be angry with you if I did not know how little you meant
this," said Angela, in an unruffled voice, although the faint colour had
risen to her cheeks, and her eyes looked feverishly bright. "But you are
not like yourself, Hugo; you are distressed about something. You know,
at least, that we do not hate you, and you do not hate us."

"I do not hate you," said Hugo, with emphasis.

He seized a fold of her dress and pressed it to his lips. But he said
nothing more, and by-and-bye, when she gently disengaged her gown from
his hold, he made no opposition to her going. She left him with
reluctance, but she knew that Mrs. Luttrell would want her at that hour,
and did not like to be kept waiting. She glanced back when she reached
the bend in the road that would hide him from her sight. She saw that he
had resumed his former position, with his head bent upon his arms, and
his face hidden.

"Poor Hugo!" she said to herself, as she turned towards the house.

Netherglen was a quaint-looking, irregular building of grey, stone, not
very large, but considerably larger than its appearance led one to
conjecture, from the fact that a wing had been added at the back of the
house, where it was not immediately apparent. The peculiarity of this
wing was that, although built close to the house, it did not actually
touch it except at certain points where communication with the main part
was necessary; the rooms on the outer wing ran parallel for some
distance with those in the house, but were separated by an interval of
one or two feet. This was a precaution taken, it was said, in order to
deaden the noise made by the children when they were in the nurseries
situated in this part of the house. It had certainly been an effectual
one; it was difficult to hear any sound proceeding from these rooms,
even when one stood in the large central hall from which the
sitting-rooms opened.

Angela was anxious to find Ri