Under False Pretences. Sergeant Adeline
eyes blazed with sudden wrath.
"You have said too little or too much," he said. "I must know the rest. What is it that people say?"
"Don't you know?"
"No, I do not know. Out with it."
"I can't tell you," said Hugo, biting his lips. "Don't ask me, ask someone else. Anyone."
"Is 'anyone' sure to know? I will hear it from you, and from no one else. What do people say?"
Hugo looked up at him and then down again. The struggle that was waging between the powers of good and evil in his soul had its effect even on his outer man. His very lips turned white as he considered what he should say.
Brian noted this change of colour, and was moved by it, thinking that he understood Hugo's reluctance to give him pain. He subdued his own impatience, and spoke in a lower, quieter voice.
"Don't take it to heart, Hugo, whatever it may be. It cannot be worse than the thing I have heard already—from my mother. I don't suppose I shall mind it much. They say, perhaps, that I—that I shot my brother"—(in spite of himself, Brian's voice trembled with passionate indignation)—"that I killed Richard purposely—knowing what I did—in order to possess myself of this miserable estate of his—is that what they say?"
Hugo answered by a bare little monosyllable—
"Yes."
"And who says this?"
"Everyone. The whole country side."
"Then—if this is believed so generally—why have no steps been taken to prove my guilt? Good God, my guilt! Why should I not be prosecuted at once for murder?"
"There would be no evidence, they say." Hugo murmured, uneasily. "It is simply a matter of assertion; you say you shot at a bird, not seeing him, and they say that you must have known that he was there. That is all."
"A matter of assertion! Well, they are right so far. If they don't believe my word, there is no more to be said," replied Brian, sadly, his excitement suddenly forsaking him. "Only I never thought that my word would even be asked for on such a subject by people who had known me all my life. You don't doubt me, do you, Hugo?"
"How could I?" said Hugo, in a voice so low and shaken that Brian could scarcely hear the words. But he felt instinctively that the lad's trust in him, on that one point, at least, had not wavered, and with a warm thrill of affection and gratitude he held out his hand. It gave him a rude shock to see that Hugo drew back and would not take it.
"What! you don't trust me after all?" he said, quickly.
"I—I do," cried Hugo, "but—what does it matter what I think? I'm not fit to take your hand—I cannot—I cannot——"
His emotion was so genuine that Brian felt some surprise, and also some compunction for having distrusted him before.
"Dear Hugo," he said, gently, "I shall know you better now. We have always been friends; don't forget that we are friends still, although I may be on the other side of the world. I'm going to try and lose myself in some out-of-the-way place, and live where nobody will ever know my story, but I shall be rather glad to think sometimes that, at any rate, you understand what I felt about poor Richard—that you never once misjudged me—I won't forget it, Hugo, I assure you."
He pressed Hugo's still reluctant hand, and then made him sit down beside him upon the fallen tree.
"We must talk business now," he said, more cheerfully—though it was a sad kind of cheerfulness after all—"for we have not much time left. I hear the luncheon-bell already. Shall we finish our talk first? You don't care for luncheon? No more do I. Where had we got to? Only to the initial step—that I was going abroad. I have several other things to explain to you."
His eyes looked out into the distance as he spoke; his voice lost its forced cheerfulness, and became immeasurably grave and sad. Hugo listened with hidden face. He did not care to turn his gloomy brows and anxiously-twitching lips towards the speaker.
"I shall never come back to Scotland," said Brian, slowly. "To England I may come some day, but it will be after many years. My mother has the management of Strathleckie; as well as of Netherglen, which belongs to her. She will live here, and use the house and dispose of the revenues as she pleases. Angela remains with her."
"But if you marry——"
"I shall never marry. My life is spoilt—ruined. I could not ask any woman to share it with me. I shall be a wanderer on the face of the earth—like Cain."
"No, no!" cried Hugo, passionately. "Not like Cain. There is no curse on you——"
"Not even my mother's curse? I am not sure," said Brian. "I shall be a wanderer, at any rate; so much is certain: living on my three hundred a year, very comfortably, no doubt; until this life is over, and I come out clear on the other side——"
Hugo lifted his face. "You don't mean," he whispered, with a look of terrified suspicion, "that you would ever lay hands on yourself, and shorten your life in that way?"
"Why, no. What makes you think that I should choose such a course? I hope I am not a coward," said Brian, simply. "No, I shall live out my days somewhere—somehow; but there is no harm in wishing that they were over."
There was a pause. The dreamy expression of Brian's eyes seemed to betoken that his thoughts were far away. Hugo moved his stick nervously through the grass at his feet. He could not look up.
"What else have you to tell me?" he said at last.
"Do you know the way in which Strathleckie was settled?" said Brian, quietly, coming down to earth from some high vision of other worlds and other lives than ours. "Do you know that my grandfather made a curious will about it?"
"No," said Hugo. It was false, for he knew the terms of the will quite well; but he thought it more becoming to profess ignorance.
"This place belonged to my mother's father. It was left to her children and their direct heirs; failing heirs, it reverts to a member of her family, a man of the name of Gordon Murray. We have no power to alienate any portion of it. The rents are ours, the house and lands are ours, for our lives only. If we die, you see, without children, the property goes to these Murrays."
"Cousins of yours, are they?"
"Second cousins. I have never troubled myself about the exact degree of relationship until within the last day or two. I find that Gordon Murray would be my second cousin once removed, and that his child or children—he has more than one, I believe—would, therefore, be my third cousins. A little while ago I should have thought it highly improbable that any of the Gordon Murrays would ever come into possession of Strathleckie, but it is not at all improbable now."
"Where do these Murrays live?"
"In London, I think. I am not sure. I have asked Colquhoun to find out all that he can about them. If there is a young fellow in the family, it might be well to let him know his prospects and invite him down. I could settle an income on him if he were poor. Then the estate would benefit somebody."
"You can do as you like with the income," said Hugo.
The words escaped him half against his will. He stole a glance at Brian when they were uttered, as if anxious to ascertain whether or no his cousin had divined his own grudging, envious thoughts. He heartily wished that Richard's money had come to him. In Brian's place it would never have crossed his mind that he should throw away the good fortune that had fallen to his lot. If only he were in this lucky young Murray's shoes!
Brian did not guess the thoughts that passed through Hugo's mind, but that murmured speech reminded him of another point which he wished to make quite clear.
"Yes, I can do what I like with the income," he said, "and also with a sum of money that my father invested many years ago which nobody has touched at present. There are twelve thousand pounds in the Funds, part of which I propose to settle upon you so