"Let me come with you, then. We will both leave Miss Murray to enjoy her inheritance in peace."

"No, that would not be just."

"Just! What do I care for justice?" said Dino, indignantly, while his eyes grew dark and his cheeks crimson with passionate feeling. "I care for you, for her, for the happiness of you both. Can I do nothing towards it?"

"Nothing, I think, Dino mio."

"But you will stay with me until you go? You will not cast me off as you have cast off your other friends? Promise me."

"I promise you, Dino," said Brian, laying his hand soothingly on the other's shoulder. It seemed to him that Dino must be suffering from fever; that he was taking a morbidly exaggerated view of matters. But his next words showed that his excitement proceeded from no merely physical cause.

"I have done you no harm, at any rate," he said, rising and holding Brian's hand between his own. "I have made up my mind. I will have none of this inheritance. It shall either be yours or hers. I do not want it.

And I have taken the first step towards ridding myself of it."

"What have you done?" said Brian.

"Will you ever forgive me?" asked Dino, looking half-sadly, half-doubtfully, into his face. "I am not sure that you ever will. I have betrayed you. I have said that you were alive."

Brian's face first turned red, then deathly pale. He withdrew his hand from Dino's grasp, and took a backward step.

"You!" he said, in a stifled voice. "You! whom I thought to be my friend!"

"I am your friend still," said Dino.

Brian resumed his place by the mantelpiece, and played mechanically with the ornaments upon it. His face was pale still, but a little smile had begun to curve his lips.

"So," he said, slowly, "my deep-laid plans are frustrated, it seems. I did not think you would have done this, Dino. I took a good deal of trouble with my arrangements."

The tone of gentle satire went to Dino's heart. He looked appealingly at Brian, but did not speak.

"You have made me look like a very big fool," said Brian, quietly, "and all to no purpose. You can't make me stay in England, you know, or present myself to be recognised by Mrs. Luttrell, and old Colquhoun. I shall vanish to South America under another name, and leave no trace behind, and the only result of your communication will be to disturb people's minds a little, and to make them suppose that I had repented of my very harmless deception, and was trying to get money out of you and Miss Murray."

"Nobody would think so who knows you."

"Who does know me? Not even you, Dino, if you think I would take advantage of what you have said to-night. Go to-morrow, and tell Brett that you were mistaken. It is Brett you have told, of course."

"It is not Brett."

"Who then?"

"Mr. Percival Heron," said Dino, looking him steadily in the face.

Brian drew himself up into an upright posture, with an ejaculation of astonishment. "Good Heavens, Dino! What have you been doing?"

"My duty," answered Dino.

"Your duty! Good Heavens!--unpardonable interference I should call it from any one but you. You don't understand the ways of the world! How should you, fresh from a Romish seminary? But you should understand that it is wiser, safer, not to meddle with the affairs of other people."

"Your affairs are mine," said Dino, with his eyes on the ground.

Brian laughed bitterly. "Hardly, I think. I have given no one any authority to act for me. I may manage my affairs badly, but on the whole I must manage them for myself."

"I knew that I should have to bear your reproaches," said Dino, with folded arms and downcast eyes. Then, after a pause, during which Brian walked up and down the room impatiently, he added in a lower tone, "But I did not think that they would have been so bitter."

Brian stopped short and looked at him, then came and laid his hand gently on his shoulder. "Poor Dino!" he said, "I ought to remember how unlike all the rest of the world you are. Forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you. No doubt you thought that you were acting for the best."

Dino looked up, and met the somewhat melancholy kindness of Brian's gaze. His heart was already full: his impulsive nature was longing to assert itself: with one great sob he threw his arms round Brian's neck, and fell weeping upon his shoulder.

"But, my dear Dino," said Brian, when the storm (the reason of which he understood very imperfectly) had subsided, "you must see that this communication of my secret to Mr. Heron will make a difference in my plans."

"What difference?"

"I must start to-morrow instead of next week."

"No, Brian, no."

"I must, indeed. Heron will tell your story to Brett, to Colquhoun, to Mrs. Luttrell, to Miss Murray. He may have telegraphed it already. It is very important to him, because, you see," said Brian, with a sad half-smile, "he is going to marry Miss Murray, and, unless he knows your history, he will think that my existence will deprive her of her fortune."

"I do not believe he will tell your story to anyone."

"Dino, caro mio! Heron is a man of honour. He can do nothing less, unfortunately."

"I think he will do less. I think that no word of what I have told him will pass his lips."

"It would be impossible for him to keep silence," remarked Brian, coldly, and Dino said nothing more.

It was after a long silence, when the candle had died out, and the fire had grown so dim that they could not see each other's faces, that Brian said in a low, but quiet tone--

"Did you tell him why I left Strathleckie?"

"Yes, I did."

Brian suppressed a vexed exclamation. It was no use trying to make Dino understand his position.

"What did he say?" he asked.

"He knew already."

"Ah! Yes. So I should have supposed." And there the conversation ended.

Long after Dino was tranquilly sleeping, Brian Luttrell sat by the ricketty round table in the middle of the room labouring at the composition of one or two letters, which seemed very difficult to write.

Sheet after sheet was torn up and thrown aside. The grey dawn was creeping in at the window before the last word was written, and the letters placed within their respective envelopes. Slowly and carefully he wrote the address of the longest letter--wrote it, as he thought, for the last time--Mrs. Luttrell, Netherglen, Dunmuir. Then he stole quietly out of the house, and slipped it into the nearest pillar-box. The other letter--a few lines merely--he put in his pocket, unaddressed. On his return he entered the tiny slip of a room which Dino occupied, fearing lest his movements should have disturbed the sleeper. But Dino had not stirred. Brian stood and looked at him for a little while, thinking of the circumstances in which they had first met, of the strange bond which subsisted between them, and lastly of the curious betrayal of his confidence, so unlike Dino's usual conduct, which Brian charitably set down to ignorance of English customs and absence of English reserve. He guessed no finer motive, and his mouth curled with an irrepressible, if somewhat mournful, smile, as he turned away, murmuring to himself:--

"I have had my revenge."

He did not leave England next day. Dino's entreaties weighed with him; and he knew also that he himself had acted in a way which was likely to nullify his friend's endeavours to reinstate him in his old position. He waited with more curiosity than apprehension for the letter, the telegram, the visit, that would assure him of Percival's uprightness.

For Brian had no doubt in his own mind as to what Percival Heron ought to do. If he learnt that Brian Luttrell was still living, he ought to communicate the fact to Mr. Colquhoun at least. And if Mr. Colquhoun were the kindly old man that he used to be, he would probably hasten to London to shake hands once more with the boy that he had known and loved in early days. Brian was so certain of this that he caught himself listening for the door-bell, and rehearsing the sentences with which he should excuse his conduct to his kind, old friend.

But two days passed away, and he watched in vain. No message, no visitor, came to show him that Percival Heron had told the story.