Brian Luttrell, as you call him, wishes to marry her? I am not so anxious to secure Mr. Brian Luttrell's happiness."

"But you wish to secure Miss Murray's, do you not?"

Percival became suddenly silent. Dino went on persuasively.

"I care little for the money and the lands which they say would be mine.

My greatest wish in life is to become a monk. That is why I put on the gown that I used to wear, although I have taken no vows upon me yet, but I came to you in the spirit of one to whom earthly things are dead. Let me give up this estate to Brian, and make him happy with the woman that he loves. When he is married to Elizabeth you shall never see my face again."

"This is your proposition?" said Percival, after a little pause.

"Yes."

"If I give up Elizabeth"--he forgot that he had not meant to call her by her Christian name in Dino Vasari's presence--"you will give up your claim to the property?"

"Yes."

"And if I refuse, what will you do?"

"Fight the matter out by the help of the lawyers," said Dino, with an irrepressible flash of his dark eyes. And then there was another pause, during which Percival knitted his brows and gazed into the fire, and Dino never took his eyes from the other's face.

"Well, I refuse," said Percival at last, getting up and walking about the room, with an air of being more angry than he really was. "I will have none of your crooked Italian ways. Fair play is the best way of managing this matter. I refuse to carry out my share of this 'amicable arrangement,' as Brett would call it. Let us fight it out. Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost."

The last sentence was an English one.

"But what satisfaction will the fight give to anybody?" said Dino, earnestly. "For myself--I may gain the estate--I probably shall do so--and what use shall I make of it? I might give it, perhaps, to Brian, but what pleasure would it be to him if she married you? Miss Murray will be left in poverty."

"And do you think she will care for that? Do you think I should care?"

"Money is a good thing: it is not well to despise it," said Dino. "Think what you are doing. If you refuse my proposition you deprive Miss Murray of her estate, and--I leave you to decide whether you deprive her of her happiness."

"Miss Murray can refuse me if she chooses," said Percival, shortly. "I should be a great fool if I handed her over at your recommendation to a man that I know nothing about. Besides, you could not do it. This Italian friend of yours, this Prior of San Stefano, would not let the matter fall through. He and Brett would bring forward the witnesses----"

Dino turned his eyes slowly upon him with a curiously subtle look.

"No," he said. "I have received news to-day which puts the matter completely in my own hands. Vincenza Vasari is dead: Rosa Naldi is dying. They were in a train when a railway accident took place. They will never be able to appear as witnesses."

"But they made depositions----"

"Yes. I believe these depositions would establish the case. But depositions are written upon paper, and hearsay evidence is not admitted. Nobody could prove it, if I did not wish it to be proved."

"I doubt whether it could be proved at all," said Percival, hesitatingly. "Of course, it would make Miss Murray uncomfortable. And if that other Brian Luttrell is living still, the money would go back to him. Would he divide it with you, do you think, if he got it, even as you would share it all with him?"

"I believe so," answered Dino. "But I should not want it--unless it were to give to the monastery; and San Stefano is already rich. A monk has no wants."

"But I am not a monk. There lies the unfairness of your proposal. You give up what you care for very little: I am to give up what is dearer than the whole world to me. No; I won't do it. It's absurd."

"Is this your answer, Mr. Heron?" said Dino. "Will you sacrifice Brian's happiness--I say nothing of her's, for you understand her best--for your own?"

"Yes, I will," Percival declared, roundly. "No man is called upon to give up his life for another without good reason. Your friend is nothing to me. I'll get what I can out of the world for myself. It is little enough, but I cannot be expected to surrender it for some ridiculous notion of unselfishness. I never professed to be unselfish in my life.

Mr. Stretton is a man to whom I owe a grudge. I acknowledge it."

Dino sighed heavily. The shade of disappointment upon his face was so deep that Heron felt some pity for him--all the more because he believed that the monk was destined to deeper disappointment still. He turned to him with almost a friendly look.

"You can't expect extraordinary motives from an ordinary man like me,"

he said. "I must say in all fairness that you have made a generous proposal. If I spoke too violently and hastily, I hope you will overlook it. I was rather beside myself with rage--though not with the sort of regret which Mr. Brett kindly attributes to me."

"I understood that," said Dino.

By a sudden impulse Percival held out his hand. It was a strong testimony to Dino's earnestness and simplicity of character that the two parted friends after such a stormy interview.

As they went out of the office together Percival said, abruptly:--

"Where are you staying?"

Dino named the place.

"With the man you call Brian Luttrell?"

"With Brian Luttrell."

"What is the next thing you mean to do?"

"I must tell Brian that I have betrayed his secret."

"Oh, he won't be very angry with you for that!" laughed Percival.

Dino shook his head. He was not so sure.

As soon as they had separated, Percival went off at a swinging pace for a long walk. It was his usual way of getting rid of annoyance or excitement; and he was vexed to find that he could not easily shake off the effects that his conversation with Dino Vasari had produced upon his mind. The unselfishness, the devotion, of this man--younger than himself, with a brilliant future before him if only he chose to take advantage of it--appealed powerfully to his imagination. He tried to laugh at it: he called Dino hard names--"Quixotic fool," "dreamer," and "enthusiast"--but he could not forget that an ideal of conduct had been presented to his eyes, which was far higher than any which he should have thought possible for himself, and by a man upon whose profession of faith and calling he looked with profound contempt.

He tried to disbelieve the story that he had been told. He tried hard to think that the man whom Elizabeth loved could not be Brian Luttrell. He strove to convince himself that Elizabeth would be happier with him than with the man she loved. Last of all he struggled desperately with the conviction that it was his highest duty to tell her the whole story, set her free, and let Brian marry her if he chose. With the respective claims of Dino, Brian, and Elizabeth to the estate, he felt that he had no need to interfere. They must settle it amongst themselves.

Of one thing he wanted to make sure. Was the tutor who had come with the Herons from Italy indeed Brian Luttrell? How could he ascertain?

Chance favoured him, he thought. On the following morning he met Hugo Luttrell in town, and accosted him with unusual eagerness.

"I've an odd question to ask you," he said, "but I have a strong reason for it. You saw the tutor at Strathleckie when you were in Scotland?"

"Yes," said Hugo, looking at him restlessly out of his long, dark eyes.

"Had you any idea that Stretton was not his real name?"

Hugo paused before he replied.

"It is rather an odd question, certainly," he said, with a temporising smile. "May I ask what you want to know for?"

"I was told that he came to the house under a feigned name: that's all."

"Who told you so?"