quarrelled with many people before you,
and she'll like enough come to her senses in course of time."

"Did he say I had quarrelled with my aunt?" asked Hugo, in a dazed sort
of way.

"Well, he said as much. He said there had been a quarrel. He asked me to
keep an eye on you. Why, Hugo, my man, what's the matter?"

For Hugo, utterly careless of the old man's presence, suddenly laid his
aims on the table, and his head on his arms, and burst into passionate
hysterical tears.

"Tut, tut, tut, man! this will never do," said Mr. Colquhoun,
rebukingly. "You're not a girl, nor a child, to cry for a sharp word or
two. What's wrong?"

But he got no answer. Not even when Hugo, spent and exhausted with the
violence of his emotion, lifted up his face and asked hoarsely for
brandy. Mr. Colquhoun gave him what he required, without asking further
questions, and tried to induce him to take some solid food; but Hugo
absolutely refused to swallow anything but a stiff glass of brandy and
water, and allowed himself to be conducted to a bed-room, where he flung
himself face downwards on the bed, and preserved a sullen silence.

Mr. Colquhoun did not press him to speak. "I'll hear it all from
Margaret Luttrell to-morrow morning," he said to himself. "My mind
misgives me that there have been strange doings up at Netherglen
to-night. But I'll know to-morrow."

It was at that very moment that Angela Vivian, going into the
dressing-room, found a motionless, silent figure, sitting upright in the
wheeled arm-chair, a figure, not lifeless, indeed, but with life
apparent only in the agonised glance of the restless eyes, which seemed
to plead for help. But no help could be given to her now. No more hard
words could fall from those stricken lips: no more bitter sentences be
written by those nerveless fingers. She might live for years, if
dragging on a mute, maimed existence could be, indeed, called living;
but, as far as power over the destiny of others, of doing good or harm
to her loved ones, was concerned, Margaret Luttrell was practically
dead!

Mr. Colquhoun heard the news of Mrs. Luttrell's seizure on the following
morning, and made good use of it as a reproach to Dino in the
conversation that he had with him. But Dino, although deeply grieved at
the turn which things had taken, stood firm. He would have nothing to do
with the Strathleckie or the Luttrell properties. Whereupon, Mr.
Colquhoun went straight to Miss Murray, and told her,