as her own.

It was a long fight, but in the end Mrs. Luttrell had to yield. She
dismissed Vincenza, and she returned to Scotland with the two children.
Her husband exacted from her a promise that she would never again speak
of the wild suspicion that had entered her mind; that under no
circumstances would she ever let the poor little boy know of the painful
doubt that had been thrown on his identity. Mrs. Luttrell promised, and
for three-and-twenty years she kept her word. Perhaps she would not have
broken it then but for a certain great trouble which fell upon her, and
which caused a temporary revival of the strange madness which had led
her to hate the child placed in her arms at San Stefano.

It was not to be wondered at that Edward Luttrell made a favourite of
his second son in after life. A sense of the injustice done him by his
mother made the father especially tender to the little Brian; he walked
with him, talked with him, made a companion of him in every possible
way. Mrs. Luttrell regained by degrees the cold composure of manner that
had distinguished her in earlier life: but she could not command herself
so far as to make a show of affection for her younger son. Brian was a
very small boy indeed when he found that out. "Mother doesn't love me,"
he said once to his father, with grieving lips and tear-filled eyes; "I
wonder why." What could his father do but press him passionately to his
broad breast and assure him in words of tenderest affection that he
loved his boy; and that if Brian were good, and true, and brave, his
mother would love him too! "I will be very good then," said Brian,
nestling close up to his father's shoulder--for he was a child with
exceedingly winning ways and a very affectionate disposition--and
putting one arm round Mr. Luttrell's neck. "But you know she loves
Richard always--even when he is naughty. And you love me when I'm
naughty, too." What could Mr. Luttrell say to that?

He died when Brian was fifteen years old; and the last words upon his
tongue were an entreaty that his wife would never tell the boy of the
suspicion that had turned her love to him into bitterness. He died, and
part of the sting of his death to Mrs. Luttrell lay in the fact that he
died thinking her mad on that one point. The doctors had called her
conviction "a case of mania," and he had implicitly believed them.

But suppose she had not been mad all the time!

II.

In San Stefano life went on tranquill