y a
long day.

"Heigho!" he said, rising from his task, and giving the box a shove with
his foot into a corner, "I wonder where Dino is? He ought not to be out
so late with that cough of his. I suppose he has gone to Brett and
Grattan's. I am glad the dear fellow has put himself into their hands.
Right ought to be done: she would have said so herself, and I know Dino
will be generous. It would suit him very well to take a money
compensation, and let her continue to reign, with glories somewhat
shorn, however, at Strathleckie. I am afraid he will do nothing but
enrich San Stefano with his inheritance. He certainly will not settle
down at Netherglen as a country squire.

"What will my mother say? Pooh! I must get out of that habit of calling
her my mother. She is no relation of mine, as she herself told me. Mrs.
Luttrell!--it sounds a little odd. Odder, too, to think that I must
never sign myself Brian Luttrell any more. Bernardino Vasari! I think I
might as well stick to the plain John Stretton, which I adopted on the
spur of the moment at San Stefano. I suppose I shall soon have to meet
the woman who calls herself--who is--my mother. I will say nothing harsh
or unkind to her, poor thing! She has done herself a greater injury than
she has done me."

So he meditated, with his face bent over his folded arms upon the
mantelpiece. A slow step on the stair roused him, he poked the fire
vigorously, lighted another candle, and then opened the door.

"Is that you, Dino?" he said. "Where have you been for the last three
hours?"

Dino it was. He came in without speaking, and dropped into a chair, as
if exhausted with fatigue. Brian repeated his question, but when Dino
tried to answer it, a fit of coughing choked his words. It lasted
several minutes, and left him panting, with the perspiration standing in
great beads upon his brow.

With a grave and anxious face Brian brought him some water, wrapped a
cloak round his shaking shoulders, and stood by him, waiting for the
paroxysm of coughing to abate. Dino's cough was seldom more than the
little hacking one, which the wound in his side seemed to have left, but
it was always apt to grow worse in cold or foggy weather, and at times
increased to positive violence. Brian, who had visited him regularly
while he was in hospital, and nursed him with a woman's tenderness as
soon as he was discharged from it, had never known it to be so bad as it
was on this occasion.

"You've been