paused, as if he had met with an unexpected check, and then
went off into a fit of rather forced laughter.

"So you never thought that," he said. "And that was the only motive that
occurred to you? Then, perhaps you will kindly tell me the story as it
was told to you, for you seem to have had a special edition. Has Dino
Vasari been down here?"

She gave him a short account of the events that had occurred at
Netherglen, and she noticed that as he listened, he forgot to smoke his
cigar, and that he leaned his elbow on the arm of the great chair, and
shaded his eyes with his hand. There was a certain suppressed eagerness
in his manner, as he turned round when she had finished, and said, with
lifted eyebrows:--

"Is that all?"

"What else do you know?" said Elizabeth.

He rubbed his hand impatiently backwards and forwards on the arm of the
chair, and did not speak for a moment.

"What does Colquhoun advise you to do?" he asked, presently.

"To wait here until Brian Luttrell is found and brought home."

"Brought home. They think he will come?"

"Oh, yes. Why not? When everybody knows that he is alive there will be
no possible reason why he should stay away. In fact, if he is a
right-thinking man, he will see that justice requires him to come home
at once."

"I should not think, myself, that he was a right-thinking man," said
Percival, without looking at her.

"Because he allowed himself to be thought dead?" said Elizabeth,
watching him as he relighted his cigar. "But, then, he was in such
terrible trouble--and the opportunity offered itself, and seemed so
easy. Poor fellow! I was always very sorry for him."

"Were you?"

"Yes. His mother, at least, Mrs. Luttrell, for I suppose she is not his
mother really, must have been very cruel. From all that I have heard he
was the last man to be jealous of his brother, or to wish any harm to
him."

"In short, you are quite prepared to look upon him as a _heros de
roman_, and worship him as such when he appears. Possibly you may think
there is some reason in Dino Vasari's naive suggestion that you should
marry Mr. Luttrell and prevent any division of the property."

"A suggestion which, from you, Percival, is far more insulting than that
of the motive which I did not attribute to you," said Elizabeth, with
spirit.

"You wouldn't marry Brian Luttrell, then?"

"Percival!"

"Not under any consideration? Well, tell me so. I like to hear you say
it."

Elizabeth wa