Under False Pretences. Sergeant Adeline
much to heart," he said.
"Do you think he does?" asked Mr. Colquhoun, drily. "I don't believe he's got a heart, the young scamp. I found him myself in the wood, examining the bark of the tree near which the accident took place, you know, on the morning after Richard's death, as cool as a cucumber. 'I was trying to make out how it happened,' he said to me, when I came up. 'Brian must have shot very straight.' I told him to go home and mind his own business."
"Do you think what they say about Brian's intentions had any foundation?" asked the doctor.
"Not a bit. Brian's too tender-hearted for a thing of that sort. But the mother's very bitter about it. She's as hard as flint. It's a bad look out for Brian. He's a ruined man."
"Not from a pecuniary point of view. The property goes to him."
"Yes, but he hasn't the strength to put up with the slights and the scandal which will go with it. He has the pluck, but not the physique. It's men like him that go out of their minds, or commit suicide, or die of heart-break—which you doctors call by some other name, of course—when the world's against them. He'll never stand it. Mark my words—Brian Luttrell won't be to the fore this time next year."
"Where will he be, Colquhoun? Come, come, Brian's a fellow with brains. He won't do anything rash."
"He'll be in his grave," said the lawyer, gloomily.
"Hell be enjoying himself in the metropolis," said the doctor. "He'll have a fine house and a pretty wife, and he'll laugh in our faces if we hint at your prophecies, Colquhoun. I should have had no respect at all for Brian Luttrell if he threw away his own life because he had accidentally taken that of another man."
"We shall see," said the lawyer.
CHAPTER VI.
MOTHER AND SON.
Early on the following morning Brian received a message from his mother. It was the first communication that she had vouchsafed to him since the day of her eldest son's death. "Would he come to her dressing-room at eleven o'clock? She wished to consult him upon special business." Brian sent word that he would be with her at that hour, and then fell into anxious meditation as he sat at breakfast, with Hugo at the other end of the table.
"Don't go far away from the house, Hugo," he said at last, as he rose to leave the room. "I may want you in the course of the morning."
Hugo looked up at him without answering. The lad had been studying a newspaper, with his head supported by his left hand, while his right played with his coffee cup or the morsels of food upon his plate. He did not seem to have much appetite. His great, dark eyes looked larger than usual, and were ringed with purple shadow; his lips were tremulous. "It was wonderful," as people said, "to see how that poor young fellow felt his cousin's death."
Perhaps Brian thought so too, for he added, very gently—though when did he not speak gently?—
"There is nothing wrong. I only want to make some arrangements with you for your future. Think a little about it before I speak to you."
And then he went out of the room, and Hugo was left to his meditations, which were not of the most agreeable character, in spite of Brian's reassuring words.
He pushed his plate and newspaper away from him impatiently; a frown showed itself on his beautiful, low brows.
"What will he do for me? Anything definite, I wonder? Poor beggar, I'm sorry for him, but my position has been decidedly improved since that unlucky shot at Richard. Did he want him out of the way, I wonder? The gloomy look with which he goes makes about one imagine that he did. What a fool he must be!"
Hugo pushed back his chair and rose: a cynical smile curled his lips for a moment, but it changed by degrees into an expression of somewhat sullen discontent.
"I wish I could sleep at nights," he said, moving slowly towards the window. "I've never been so wretchedly wakeful in all my life." Then he gazed out into the garden, but without seeing much of the scene that he gazed upon, for his thoughts were far away, and his whole soul was possessed by fear of what Brian would do or say.
At eleven o'clock Brian made his way to his mother's dressing-room, an apartment which, although bearing that name, was more like an ordinary sitting-room than a dressing-room. He knocked, and was answered by his mother's voice.
"Come in," she said. "Is it you, Brian?"
"Yes, it is I," Brian said, as he closed the door behind him.
He walked quietly to the hearth-rug, where he stood with one hand resting on the mantelpiece. It was a convenient attitude, and one which exposed him to no rebuffs. He was too wise to offer hand or cheek to his mother by way of greeting.
Mrs. Luttrell was sitting on a sofa, with her back to the light. Brian thought that she looked older and more worn; there were fresh wrinkles upon her forehead, and marks of weeping and sleeplessness about her eyes, but her figure was erect as ever, as rigidly upright as if her backbone were made of iron. She was in the deepest possible mourning; even the handkerchief that she held in her hand was edged with two or three inches of black. Brian looked round for Angela; he had expected to find her with his mother, but she was not there. The door into Mrs. Luttrell's bed-room was partly open.
"How is Angela?" he asked.
"Angela is not well. Could you expect her to be well after the terrible trial that has overtaken her?"
Brian winced. He could make no reply to such a question. Mrs. Luttrell scored a triumph, and continued in her hard, incisive way:—
"She is probably as well as she can hope to be under the circumstances. Her health has suffered—as mine also has suffered—under the painful dispensation which has been meted out to us. We do not repine. Hearts that are broken, that have no hopes, no joys, no pleasures in store for them in this life, are not eager to exhibit their sufferings. If I speak as I speak now, it is for the last and only time. It is right that you should hear me once."
"I will hear anything you choose to say," answered Brian, heavily. "But, mother, be merciful. I have suffered, too."
"We will pass over the amount of your suffering," said Mrs. Luttrell, "if you please. I have no doubt that it is very great, but I think that it will soon be assuaged. I think that you will soon begin to remember the many things that you gain by your brother's death—the social position, the assured income, the estate in Scotland which I brought to your father, as well as his own house of Netherglen—all the things for which men are only too ready to sell their souls."
"All these things are nothing to me," sighed Brian.
"They are a great deal in the world's eyes. You will soon find out how differently it receives you now from the way it received you a year—a month—a week—ago. You are a rich man. I wish you joy of your wealth. Everything goes to you except Netherglen itself; that is left in my hands."
"Mother, are you mad?" said her son, passionately. "Why do you talk to me in this way? I swear to you that I would give every hope and every joy that I ever possessed—I would give my life—to have Richard back again! Do you think I ever wanted to be rich through his death?"
"I do not know what you wanted," said Mrs. Luttrell, sternly. "I have no means of guessing."
"Is this what you wished me to say?" said Brian, whose voice was hoarse and changed. "I said that I would listen—but, you might spare me these taunts, at least."
"I do not taunt you. I wish only to draw attention to the difference between your position and my own. Richard's death brings wealth, ease, comfort to you; to me nothing but desolation. I am willing to