Adeline Sergeant

“ As yet, I have scarcely approached the object of my errand."
"Money, I suppose!" said Percival. "Truth will out, sooner or later."
"Mr. Heron," said Dino, "are we to approach this subject as gentlemen or not? When I ask you for money, you will be at liberty to insult me, not before."
Again that tone of quiet superiority! Percival broke out angrily:—
"I will listen to nothing more from you. If you like to go with me to Brett and Grattan, we will go now; if not, you are a liar and an impostor, and I shall be happy to kick you out into the street." ”

“ I am going to die, and you can be happy in your own way. I suppose you will marry Vivian?"
"Don't talk so, Hugo," she said, laying her hand upon his brow.
"Why not? I do not care. Better to die than lie here—here, where Richard Luttrell lay. Kitty, they say I cannot be moved while I live; but if—if you believe that I ever loved you, see that they carry me out of this room as soon as I am dead. Promise me that."
"I promise."
"That is all I want. Marry Vivian, and forget me as soon as you please. He will never love you as much as I did, Kitty. ”

“ Miss Murray, you know, was engaged to me when you first saw her."
"Yes, but I didn't know it!" said Brian, with vehemence almost equal to Percival's own.
"Of course you didn't. I understand all that. It was the most natural thing in the world for you to admire her."
"Admire her!" repeated Brian, in an enigmatic tone.
"Let the word stand for something stronger if you don't like it. Perhaps you do not know that your friend, Dino Vasari, the man who claimed to be Brian Luttrell, betrayed your secrets to me. It was he who told me your name, and your love for Miss Murray. ”

“ Brian raised himself a little and repeated the word with shuddering emphasis.
"Murdered!" said Mrs. Luttrell, steadily, as she turned her burning eyes full upon the countenance of her younger son; as if to watch the workings of his agitated features. "If not by the laws of man, by God's laws you are guilty. You had quarrelled with him that day; and you took your revenge. I tell you, James Muir, and you, Angela Vivian, that Brian Luttrell took his brother's life by no mistake—that he is Richard's murderer——"
"No; I swear it by the God who made me—no!" cried Brian, springing to his feet. ”

“ Oh, Doctor, is there a God in Heaven to let such things be?"
"Hut, tut, tut, but we'll have no such words as these, my bairn. If the Lord lets these things happen, we'll maybe find that He's had some good reason for't. He's always in the right. And ye must just learn to bow yourself, Brian, to the will of the Almighty, for there's no denying but He's laid a sore trial upon ye, my poor lad, and one that will be hard to bear."
"I shall never bear it," said Brian, who caught but imperfectly the drift of the doctor's simple words of comfort. "It is too hard—too hard to bear." ”

“ I have no intention of giving you up for Stretton or anybody else. I love you more than ever now that I see how brave and honest you can be. We will have no more concealments. When we go back to the house we will tell all the world of our engagement. It was the secrecy that worked this mischief."
She wrenched herself away from him with a look of mingled pain and anger. "Percival!" she cried, "do you want to make me hate you?"
"I would rather have hate than indifference," he answered. "And whether you hate me or not, Elizabeth, you shall be my wife before the year is out. ”

“ Where is Miss Vivian?"
Brian's hands dropped to his sides. He kept his eyes fixed on the doctor's face as if he would read his very soul. And for the moment Doctor Muir could not meet that piercing gaze. He tried to pass on, but Brian laid his hand on his arm.
"Tell me all," he said. "What does my mother say? Has it killed her?"
"Killed her? People are not so easily killed by grief, my dear Mr. Brian," said the doctor. "Come away, come away. Your mother is not just herself, and speaks wildly, as mothers are wont to do when they lose their first-born son. ”

“ Colquhoun had said; the wind blew in fierce but fitful gusts; the sky was covered with heavy, scurrying clouds.
Every now and then the wind sent a great dash of rain into their faces, it seemed as if a tempest were preparing, and the elements were about to be let loose.
"We are like thieves," said Heron, shrugging his shoulders. "I don't care for this style of work. I should walk boldly up to the door and give a thundering peal with the knocker."
"You don't know Hugo as well as I do," responded Brian.
"Thank Heaven, no. Are you armed, Fane?"
"I've got a stick," said Fane, with gusto. ”

“ You will like that better—in time."
"I will never be a butterfly—God helping me!" said Elizabeth. She spoke solemnly, with a noble light in her whole face which made it more than beautiful. Percival turned away his eyes from it; he did not dare to look. "If I have had wealth given me," said the girl, "I will use it for worthy ends. Others shall benefit by it as well as myself."
"Don't squander it, Lizzie," said Percival, with a cynical smile, designed to cover the exceeding sadness and soreness of his heart. "Your philanthropist is not often the wisest person in the world." ”

“ I will have my revenge."
"My fancy had settled on Rupert Vivian!" repeated Kitty, with a sudden rush of colour to her face. "Ah, how little you know about it! Rupert Vivian is far above me: he does not care for me. You have no business to speak of him."
"He does not care for you, but you are in love with him," said Hugo, looking at her from between his narrowed eyelids with a long penetrating gaze. "I understand."
Kitty shrank away from him. "No, no!" she cried. "I am not in love with anyone." ”

“ I shall be a wanderer on the face of the earth—like Cain."
"No, no!" cried Hugo, passionately. "Not like Cain. There is no curse on you——"
"Not even my mother's curse? I am not sure," said Brian. "I shall be a wanderer, at any rate; so much is certain: living on my three hundred a year, very comfortably, no doubt; until this life is over, and I come out clear on the other side——"
Hugo lifted his face. "You don't mean," he whispered, with a look of terrified suspicion, "that you would ever lay hands on yourself, and shorten your life in that way?" ”

“ She bowed her head. "Will you not sit down?" she said, softly. "Say what you like; or, at least, what you think best."
He did not sit down exactly, but he came back to the stone on which he had been sitting at her feet, and dropped on one knee upon it.
"Let me speak to you in this way, as a culprit should speak," he said, with a faint smile which had in it a gleam of some slightly ironical feeling, "and then you can pardon or condemn me as you choose."
"If you feel like a culprit you condemn yourself," said Elizabeth, lifting her eyes to his.
"I do not feel like a culprit, Miss Murray. ”

“ My whole life is a punishment. I am miserable."
"Life can never be a mere punishment, if it is rightly led," said Vivian, in a low tone. "It is, at any rate, full of duties and they will bring happiness."
"To some, perhaps; not to me," said Kitty, raising herself from her kneeling posture and drying her eyes. "I have no duties but to look nice and make myself agreeable."
"You will find duties if you look for them. There is your husband's happiness, to begin with——"
"My husband," exclaimed Kitty, in a tone of passionate contempt that startled him. ”

“ There was a dreariness in her tone which went to Rupert's heart.
"Take courage," he said. "Brian and Elizabeth will be in Dunmuir to-night. Shall they come to see you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" cried Kitty. "Let them come at once—at once, tell them. You will see them, will you not?" She had forgotten Rupert's blindness. "If they come, I shall be prevented from meeting them, perhaps; I know I shall not be allowed to talk to them alone. Tell Mr. Luttrell to come and live at Netherglen. Tell him to turn us out. I shall be thankful to him all my life if he turns us out. ”

“ I loved my own life in the monastery. I wanted to be a priest. But I thought of the boy who bore my name; I wove fancies about him night and day; I wished with all my heart to see him. I used to think that the day would come when I should say to him—'Let us know each other; let us keep our secret, but love each other nevertheless. You can be Brian Luttrell, and I will be Dino Vasari, as long as the world lasts. We will not change. But we will be friends.'"
His voice grew husky; he leaned his head upon his hands for a few moments, and did not speak. Hugo still watched him curiously. ”

“ Why could you not come down to dinner to-night when Rupert and I were here?"
"I very seldom come down to dinner. I was with the children."
"The children are not your business."
"Indeed they are. Mrs. Heron has given them into my charge, and I am glad of it. Not that I care for all children," said Elizabeth, with the cool impartiality that was wont to drive Percival to the very verge of distraction. "I dislike some children very much, indeed, but, you see, I happen—fortunately for myself—to be fond of Harry, Willie, and Jack." ”

“ He did not feel the rain beating upon his head: he did not hear the thunder, nor see the forked lightning that played without intermission in the darkened sky; he was conscious only of the intolerable fact that he was shut up in a narrow corner of the earth, in daily, almost hourly, companionship with the one man for whom he felt something not unlike fierce hatred. And in spite of his resolution to act generously for Elizabeth's sake, the hatred flamed up again when he found himself so suddenly thrust, as it were, into Brian Luttrell's presence. ”

“ Luttrell. "He stood in your place. If you had a spark of proper pride in you, you would know that he was your enemy, and you will feel towards him as I do."
"He is an enemy that I have learned to love," answered Dino. "At any rate, mother"—his voice always softened when he called her by that name—"at any rate, you will try to love him now."
"Why now?" She asked the question sharply.
"Because I mean him to fill my place."
There was a little silence, in which the fall of a cinder from the grate could be distinctly heard. Then Mrs. Luttrell uttered a long, low moan. "Oh, my God!" she said. ”

“ He would not condescend to threaten Hugo with the police-court and the criminal cell. He loosed his hold on the young man's shoulder, and told him to rise from the half-kneeling posture, to which fear, rather than Dino's strength, had brought him. And when Hugo stood before him, he spoke in the tone of one to whom the spiritual side of life was more real, more important than any other, and it seemed to Hugo as if he spoke from out some other world.
"There is a day coming," he said, "when the secrets of all men's hearts will be revealed. ”