rian was feeling bitterly that he had done Percival
some wrong: he knew that he might justly be blamed for returning to
Scotland after his supposed death. He need not have practised any
deception at all, but, having practised it, he ought to have maintained
it. He had no right to let the estates pass to Elizabeth unless he meant
her to keep them. Such, he imagined, might well be Percival's attitude
of mind towards him.

And then there was the question of his love for Elizabeth, of which both
Elizabeth herself and Dino Vasari had made Heron aware. But in this
there was nothing to be ashamed of. When he fell in love with Elizabeth,
he thought her comparatively poor and friendless, and he did not know of
her engagement to Percival. He never whispered to himself that he had
won her heart: that fact, which Elizabeth fancied that she had made
shamefully manifest, had not been grasped by Brian's consciousness at
all. He would have thought himself a coxcomb to imagine that she cared
for him more than as a friend. If he had ever dreamt of such a thing, he
assured himself that he had made a foolish mistake.

He thought that he understood what Percival wanted to say to him. Of
course, since Dino had disclosed the truth, Elizabeth Murray desired to
give up the property, and her lover had volunteered to come in search of
the missing man. It was a generous act, and one that Brian thoroughly
admired: it was worthy, he thought, of Elizabeth's lover. For he knew
that he had always been especially obnoxious to Percival Heron in his
capacity as tutor; and now, if he were to assume the character of a
claimant to Elizabeth's estates, he would certainly not find the road to
Percival's liking. For his own part, Brian respected and liked Percival
Heron much more than he had found it possible to do during those flying
visits to Italy, when he had systematically made himself disagreeable to
the unknown Mr. Stretton. He admired the way in which Percival assumed
the leadership of the party, and bore the burden of all their
difficulties on his own broad shoulders: he admired his cheerfulness and
untiring energy. He was sure that if Heron could succeed in carrying him
off to England, and forcing him to make Elizabeth a poor woman instead
of a rich one, he would be only too pleased to do so. But this was a
thing which Brian did not mean to allow.

Jackson's illness was a protracted one, and left him in a weak state,
from which he had not recovered