d switching the grass savagely with his cane.

"Always talking about it! Be reasonable, Hugo."

"It was only because I was at my wits' end for money," said the lad,
irritably. "And that came in my way, and--I had never taken any
before----"

"And never will again," said Brian. "That's what I want to hear you
say."

But Hugo would say nothing. He stood, the impersonation of silent
obstinacy, digging the end of his stick into the earth, or striking at
the blue bells and the brambles within reach, resolved to utter no word
which Brian could twist into any sort of promise for the future. He knew
that his silence might injure his prospects, by lowering him in Brian's
estimation--Brian being now the arbiter of his fate--but for all that he
could not bring himself to make submission or to profess penitence.
Something made the words stick in his throat; no power on earth would at
that moment have forced him to speak.

"Well," said Brian at last, in a tone which showed deep disappointment,
"I am sorry that you won't go so far, Hugo. I hope you will do well,
however, without professions. Still, I should have been better satisfied
to have your word for it--before I left Netherglen."

"Where are you going?" said Hugo, suddenly facing him.

"I don't quite know."

"To London?"

"No, Abroad."

"Abroad?" repeated Hugo, with a wondering accent. "Why should you go
abroad?"

"That's my own business."

"But--but--" said the lad, flushing and paling, and stammering with
eagerness, "I thought that you would stay here, and that Netherglen and
everything would belong to you, and--and----"

"And that I should shoot, and fish, and ride, and disport myself gaily
over my brother's inheritance--that my own hand deprived him of!" cried
Brian, with angry bitterness. "It is so likely! Is it you who have no
feeling, or do you fancy that I have none?"

"But the place is yours," faltered Hugo, with a guilty look,
"Strathleckie is yours, if Netherglen is not."

"Mine! Yes, it is mine after a fashion," said Brian, while a hot, red
flush crept up to his forehead, and his brows contracted painfully over
his sad, dark eyes. "It is mine by law; mine by my father's will; and if
it had come into my hands by any other way--if my brother had not died
through my own carelessness--I suppose that I might have learnt to enjoy
it like any other man. But as it is--I wish that every acre of it were
at the bottom of the loch, and I there, too, for the