Never was daylight more anxiously awaited. It came at last; a faint, grey light in the east, a climbing flush of rose-colour, a host of crimson wavelets on a golden sea. And, as soon as the darkness disappeared, Percival found that his conjecture was a correct one. He was not alone. There were others beside himself who had won their way to even safer positions than his own. Portions of the reef on which the ship had struck were now to be plainly seen above the sea-level; it was plain that they were rarely touched by the salt water, for there was an attempt at vegetation in one or two places. And beyond the reef Percival saw land, and land that it would be easy enough to reach.

He turned to look for the remains of the Arizona, but there was little to be seen. The tops of her masts were visible only in the deep water near the reef. Spars, barrels, articles of furniture, could here and there be distinguished; nothing of value nor of interest. Percival determined to try for the shore. But first he would see whether he could help the other men whom he had discerned at a little distance from him on a higher portion of the reef.

He crept out to them, feeling his way cautiously, and not sure whether he might not be swept off his feet by the force of the waves. To his surprise, when he reached the two men, he found that they were two of the survivors from the wreck of the Falcon. One of them was Thomas Jackson, and the other was Mackay, the steerage passenger.

"It's plain you weren't born to be drowned," said Percival, addressing Jackson, familiarly.

"No, sir, it don't seem like it," returned the man. "There's one or two more that have saved themselves by swimming, too, I fancy. We'd better make land while we can, sir."

"Your friend's not able to help himself much, is he?" said Percival, with a sharp glance at the bearded face of the steerage passenger.

"Swims like a duck when he's all right, sir; but at present he's got a broken leg. Fainted just now; he'll be better presently. I wouldn't have liked to leave him behind."

"We'll haul him ashore between us," said Percival.

It was more easily said than done; but the task was accomplished at last. Thomas Jackson was of a wiry frame: Percival's trained muscles (he had been in the boats at Oxford) stood him in good stead. They reached the mainland, carrying the steerage passenger with them; for the poor man, not yet half-recovered from the effects of exposure and privation, and now suffering from a fracture of the bone just above the ankle, was certainly not in a fit state to help himself. On the island they found a few cocoa-nut trees: under one of these they laid their burden, and then returned to the shore to see whether there was any other castaway whom they could assist.

In this search they were successful. One man had already followed their example and swam ashore, but he was so much exhausted that they felt bound to help him to the friendly shade of the cocoa-nut trees, where the steerage passenger, now conscious of his position, and as deadly white with the pain of his broken bone as the discolouration of his scorched face permitted him to be, moved aside a little in order to make room for him. There was another man on the reef; but he had been crushed between the upper and lower topsails, and it was almost impossible to get him to shore. Percival and Jackson made the effort, but a great wave swept the man into a cavern of the reef to which he was clinging before they could come to his assistance, and he was not seen again. With a lad of sixteen and another sailor they were more fortunate. So that when at last they met under the tree to compare notes and count their numbers, they found that the party consisted of six persons: Heron, Thomas Jackson, and his pet, the steerage passenger; George Pollard, the steward; Fenwick, the sailor; and Jim Barry, the cabin boy. They stared at each other in rather helpless silence for about a minute, and then Heron burst into a strange laugh.

"Well, I've heard of a desert island all my life," he said, "but I never was on one before."

"I was," said Fenwick, slowly, "and I didn't expect to get landed upon another. But, Lord! if once you go to sea, there's no telling."

"You must feel thankful that you're landed at all," remarked Percival. "You might have been food for the fishes by this time."

"I'd most as soon," said Fenwick, in a stolid tone, which had a depressing effect on the spirits of some of the party. The lad Barry began to whimper a little, and Pollard looked very downcast.

"Cheer up, lads," said Percival, quickly. It was wonderful to see how naturally he fell into a position of command amongst them. "That isn't the way to get home again. Never fear but a ship will pass the island and pick us up. We can't be far out of the ordinary course of the steamers. We shall be here a day or two only, or a week, perhaps. What do you say, Jackson?"

Jackson drew the back of his hand across his mouth, and seemed to meditate a reply; but while he considered the matter, the steerage passenger spoke for the first time.

"Mr. Heron is right," he said, causing Percival a moment's surprise at the fact of his name being so accurately known by a man to whom he had never spoken either on board the Arizona or since they landed. "We all ought to feel thankful to Almighty God for bringing us safe to land, instead of grumbling that the island has no inhabitants. We have had a wonderful escape."

"And so say I, sir," said Jackson, touching an imaginary cap with his forefinger, while Barry and Fenwick both looked a little ashamed of themselves, and Pollard mechanically followed the example set by the sailor. "Them as grumbles had better keep out of my sight unless they want to be kicked."

"You're fine fellows, both of you," cried Percival, heartily. And then he shook hands with Jackson, and would have followed suit with the steerage passenger, had not Mackay drawn back his hand.

"I'm not in condition for shaking hands with anybody," he said, with a smile; and Percival remembered his burns and was content.

"I know this place," said Jackson, looking round him presently. "It's a dangerous reef, and there's been a many accidents near it. Ships give it a wide berth, as a general rule." The men's faces drooped when they heard this sentence. "The Duncan Dunbar was wrecked here on the way to Auckland. The Mercurius, coming back from Sydney by way of 'Frisco, she was wrecked, too—in '70. It's the Rocas Reef, mates, which you may have heard of or you may not; and, as near as I remember, it's about three degrees south of the Line: longitude thirty-three twenty, west."

"I remember now," said Percival, eagerly. His work as a journalist helped him to remember the event to which Jackson alluded. "The men of the Mercurius found some iron tanks filled with water, left by the Duncan Dunbar people. We might go and see if they are still here. But first we must attend to this man's leg."

"It is not very bad," said Mackay.

"It's tremendously swollen, at any rate. Are you good at this sort of work, Jackson? I can't say I am."

"I know something about it," said Jackson. "Let's have a look, mate."

He knelt down and felt the swollen limb, putting its owner to considerable pain, as Percival judged from the way in which he set his teeth during the operation. Jackson had, however, a tolerable knowledge of a rough sort of surgery, and managed to set the bone and bind up the swollen limb in a manner that showed skill and tenderness as well as knowledge. And then Percival proposed that they should try to find some food, and make the tour of the island before the day grew hotter. The leadership of the party had been tacitly accorded to him from the first; and, after a consultation with the others, Jackson stepped forward to say that they all wished to consider themselves under Mr. Heron's orders, "he having more head than the rest of them, and being a gentleman born, no doubt." At which Heron laughed good-humouredly and accepted the position. "And none of us grudge you being the head," said Jackson, sagely, "except, maybe, one, and he don't count." Heron made no response; but he wondered for a moment whether the one who grudged him his leadership could possibly be Mackay, whose eyes had a quiet attentiveness to all his doings, which looked almost like criticism. But there was no other fault to be found with Mackay's manner, while against Fenwick's dogged air Percival felt some irritation.

The want of food was decidedly the first difficulty. Sea-birds' eggs and young birds, shell-fish and turtle, were all easily to be obtained; but how were they to be cooked? Percival was not without hopes that some tinned provisions might be cast ashore from the wreck; but at present there was nothing of the kind to be seen. A few cocoa-nuts were procurable: and these provided them with meat and drink for the time being. Then came the question of fire. The only possible method of obtaining it was the Indian one of rubbing two sticks diligently together for the space of some two hours; and Thomas Jackson sat down with stoical patience worthy of an Indian himself to fulfil this operation.

Percival, who felt that he could not bear to be doing nothing, started off for a walk round the island, and the rest of the party dozed in the shade until the return of their leader.

When Heron came back he made his report as cheerful as he could, but he could not make it a particularly brilliant one, although he did his best. He was one of those men who grumble at trifles, but are unusually bright and cheerful in the presence of a great emergency. The sneer had left his face, the cynical accent had disappeared from his voice; he employed all his social gifts, which were naturally great, for the entertainment of his comrades. As they ate boiled eggs and fried fish and other morsels which seemed especially dainty when cooked over the fire that Jackson's patient industry had lighted at last, the spirits of the whole party seemed to rise; and Percival's determination to look upon the bright side of things, produced a most enlivening effect. Some of them remembered afterwards, with a sort of puzzled wonder, that they had more than once laughed heartily during their first meal upon the Rocas Reef.

Yet none of them were insensible to the danger through which they had passed, nor the terrible position in which they stood. Uppermost in the minds of each, although none of them liked to put it into words, was the question—How long shall we stay here? Is it likely that any ship will observe our signal of distress and come to our aid? They looked each other furtively in the eyes, and read no comfort in each other's face.

They had landed upon one of two islands, about fifteen acres each in size, which were separated at high water, but communicated with each other when the tide had ebbed. Both islands lay low, and had patches of white sand in the centre; but there was very little vegetation. Even grass seemed as if it would not grow; and the cocoa-nut trees were few and far between.

The signs of previous wrecks struck the men's hearts with a chill. There was a log hut, to which Mackay was moved when evening came on; there were the iron tanks of which Percival had made mention, filled with rain-water; there were some rotten boards, and a small hammer and a broken knife; but there was no fresh-water spring, and there were no provision chests, such as Heron had vainly hoped to find.

The setting up of a distress-signal on the highest point of the island was the next matter to be attended to; and for this purpose nothing could be found more suitable than a very large yellow silk-handkerchief which Percival had found in his pocket. It did not make a very large flag, although it was enormous as a handkerchief; but no other article of clothing could well be spared. Indeed, the spareness of their coverings was a matter of some regret and anxiety on Percival's part. He could not conceive what they were to do if they were on the island for more than a few days; the rough work which would be probably necessary being somewhat destructive of woollen and linen garments. Jackson, with whom he ventured a joke on the subject, did not receive it in very good part. "You needn't talk as if we was to stay here for ever, Mr. Heron, sir," he murmured. "But there's always cocoa-nut fibre, if the worst comes to the worst."

"Ah, yes, cocoa-nut fibre," said Percival, turning his eyes to one of the slim, straight stems of the palm trees. "I forgot that. I seem to have walked straight into one of Jules Verne's books. Gad! I wish I could walk out of it again. What a thrilling narrative I'll make of this for the Mail when I get home. If ever I do get home. Bah, it's no use to talk of that."

These reflections were made under his breath, while Jackson walked on to examine a nest of sea-birds' eggs; for Percival was wisely resolved against showing a single sign of undue anxiety or depression of spirits, lest it should re-act on the minds of those who had declared themselves his followers. For the rest of the day the party worked hard at various contrivances for their own welfare and comfort.

Firewood was collected; birds and fish caught for the evening meal. To each member of the party a task was assigned: even Mackay could make himself useful by watching the precious flame which must never be suffered to go out. And thus the day wore on, and night came with its purple stillness and its tropical wealth of stars.

The men sought shelter in the hut: Percival only, by his own choice, remained outside until he thought that they were sleeping. He wanted to be alone. He had banished reflection pretty successfully during the day; but at night he knew that it would get the better of him. And he felt that he must meet and master the thronging doubts and fears and regrets that assailed him. Whatever happened he would not be sorry that he had come. If he never saw Elizabeth's face again, he was sure that her memories of him would be full of tenderness. What more did he want? And yet he wanted more.

He found out what his heart desired before he laid himself down to sleep amongst the men. He would have given a year of his life to know whether Brian Luttrell was alive or dead. And he could not honestly say that he wished Brian Luttrell to be alive.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

ON THE ROCAS REEF.

The morning light showed several articles on the shore which had been washed up from the wreck. Some tins of biscuits were likely to be very useful, and a box of carpenter's tools, most of them sadly rusted, was welcomed eagerly; but nothing else was found, and the day might have begun with murmurs of discontent but for a discovery made by Mackay, which restored satisfaction to the men's faces.

Close by his head in the log hut where he had spent the night, he found a sort of cupboard—something like a rabbit-hutch. And this cupboard contained—oh, joyful discovery!—not gold or gems, nor any such useless glittering lumber, but something far more precious to these weary mariners—two bottles of brandy and a chest of tea. Perhaps a former sojourner on the island had placed them in that hiding-place, thinking compassionately of the voyagers who might in some future day find themselves in bitter need upon the Rocas Reef. "Whoever it was as left 'em here," said Pollard, "got off safe again, you may depend on it; and so shall we." Percival said nothing: he had been thinking that perhaps the former owner of this buried treasure had died upon the island. He hoped that they would not find his grave.

He measured out some tea for the morning's meal, but decided that neither tea nor spirits should be used, except on special occasions or in cases of illness. The men accepted his decision as a reasonable one; they were all well-disposed and tractable on the whole. Percival was amazed to find them so easy to manage. But they were more depressed that morning at the thought of their lost comrades, their wrecked ship, and the prospect of passing an indefinite time upon the coral-reef, than they had been on the previous day. It was a relief when they were busy at their respective tasks; and Percival found an odd kind of pleasure in all sorts of hard and unusual work; in breaking up rotten planks, for instance; in extracting old nails painfully and laboriously from them for future use; and in tramping to and fro between the sea-shore and the log hut, carrying the driftwood deposited on the sand to a more convenient resting-place. They had planned to build another hut, as the existing structure was both small and frail; and Percival laboured at his work like a giant. In the hot time of the day, however, he was glad to do as the others did; to throw down his tools, such as they were, and creep into the shadow of the log hut. The heat was very great; and the men were beginning to suffer from the bites of venomous ants which infested the island. In short, as Percival said to himself, the Rocas Reef was about as little like Robinson Crusoe's island as it could possibly be. Life would be greatly ameliorated if goats and parrots could be found amongst the rocks; shell-fish and sea-fowl were a poor exchange for them; and an island that was "desert" in reality as well as in name, was a decidedly prosaic place on which to spend a few days, or weeks, or months. Of course he made none of these remarks in public; he contented himself with humming in an undertone the words of Alexander Selkirk, as interpreted by Cowper:—

"I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute—"

a quotation which brought a meaning smile to Mackay's face, whereupon Percival laughed and checked himself.

"How are you to-day?" he said, addressing the steerage passenger with some show of good-humoured interest. Mackay was lying on the sand, propped up against the wall of the hut, and Percival was breaking his nails over an obstinate screw which was deeply embedded in a thick piece of wood.

"Better, thanks." The voice was curiously hoarse and gruff.

"Jackson isn't a bad surgeon, I fancy."

"Not at all."

"Lucky for you that he was saved."

"I owe my life twice to him and once to you."

"I hope you think it's something to be grateful for," said Percival, carelessly. "You've had some escapes to tell your friends about when you get home."

Mackay turned aside his head. "I have no friends to tell," he said, shortly.

"Ah! more's the pity. Well, no doubt you will make some in Pernambuco—when you get there."

"Do you think we ever shall get there?"

Percival shot a rather displeased glance at him. "Don't go talking like that before the men," he said.

"I am not talking before the men," rejoined the steerage passenger, with a smile: "I am talking to you, Mr. Heron. And I repeat my question—Do you think we shall ever get to Pernambuco?"

"Yes," said Percival, stoutly. "A ship will see our signal and call for us."

"It's a very small flag," said Mackay, in a significant tone.

"Good Heavens!" burst out Percival, with the first departure from his good-humoured tone that Mackay had heard from him: "why do you take the trouble to put that side of the question to me? Don't you think I see it for myself? There is a chance, if it is only a small one; and I'm not going to give up hope—yet."

Then he walked away, as if he refused to discuss the subject any longer. Mackay looked at the sea and sighed; he was sorry that he had provoked Mr. Heron's wrath by his question. But he found afterwards that it contributed to form a kind of silent understanding between him and Percival. It was a sort of relief to both of them, occasionally to exchange short, sharp sentences of doubt or discouragement, which neither of them breathed in the ear of the others. Percival divined quickly enough, that the steerage passenger was not a man of Thomas Jackson's class. As the hoarseness left his voice, and the disfiguring redness disappeared from his face, Percival distinguished signs of refinement and culture which he wondered at himself for not perceiving earlier. But there was nothing remarkable in his having made a mistake about Mackay's station in life. The man had come on board the Arizona in a state of wretched suffering: his face had been scorched, his hair and beard singed, his clothes, as well as his person, blackened by dust and smoke. Then his clothes were those of a working-man, and his speech had been rendered harsh to the ear from the hoarseness of his voice. But he gradually regained his strength as he lay in the fresh air and the sunshine, and returning health gave back to him the quiet energy and cheerfulness to which Jackson had borne testimony. He was a great favourite with the men, who, in their rough way, made a sort of pet of him, and brought him offerings of the daintiest food that they could find. And his hands were not idle. He wove baskets and plaited hats of cocoa-nut fibre with his long white fingers, which were very unlike those of the working-man that he professed to be. Percival Heron was often struck by the appearance of that hand. It was one of unusual beauty—the sort of hand that Titian or Vandyke loved to draw: long, finely-shaped, full of quiet power, and fuller, perhaps, of a subtle sort of refinement, which seems to express itself in the form of tapering fingers with filbert nails and a well-turned wrist. It was not the hand of a working-man, not even of a skilled artizan, whose hand is often delicately sensitive: it was a gentleman's hand, and as such it piqued Percival's curiosity. But Mackay was of a reserved disposition, and did not offer any information about himself.

One day when rain was falling in sheets and torrents, as it did sometimes upon the Rocas Reef, Percival turned into the log hut for shelter. Mackay was there, too; his leg had been so painful that he had not left the rude bed, which his comrades had made for him, even to be carried out into the fresh air and sunshine, for two or three days. Percival noticed the look of pain in the languid eyes, and had, for a moment, a fancy that he had seen this man before. But the burns on his face, the handkerchief tied round his head to conceal a wound on the temple, and the tangled brown beard and moustache, made it difficult to seize hold of a possible likeness.

Percival threw himself on the ground with a half-sigh, and crossed his arms behind his head.

"Is anything the matter?" asked Mackay.

Percival noticed that he never addressed him as "Sir" or "Mr. Heron," unless the other men were present.

"Jackson's ill," said Percival, curtly.

Mackay started and turned on his elbow.

"Ill?"

"Fever, I'm afraid. Not bad; just a touch of it. He's in the other hut."

"I'm sorry for that," said Mackay, lying down again.

"So am I. He is the steadiest man among them. How the rain pours! Pollard is sitting with him."

There was a little silence, after which Percival spoke again.

"Are you keeping count of the days? How long is it since we landed?"

"Sixteen days."

"Is that all? I thought it had been longer."

"You were anxious to get to your journey's end, I suppose," said the steerage passenger, after a little hesitation.

"Aren't we all anxious? Do we want to stay here for ever?" And then there was another pause, which ended by Percival's saying, in a tone of subdued irritation: "There are few of our party that have the same reasons that I have for wishing myself on the way back to England."

"You are not going to stay in South America, then?"

"Not I. There is someone I want to find; that's all."

"A man?"

"Yes, a man. I thought that he had sailed in the Falcon; but I suppose I was mistaken."

"And if you don't find him?"

"I must hunt the world over until I do. I won't go back to England without him, if he's alive."

"Friend or enemy?" said Mackay, fixing his eyes on Percival's face with a look of interest. At any other time Percival might have resented the question: here, in the log hut, with a tempest roaring and the rain streaming outside, and the great stormy sea as a barrier between the dwellers on the island and the rest of the civilised world, such questions and answers seemed natural enough.

"Enemy," said Percival, sharply. It was evident that some hidden sense of wrong had sprung suddenly to the light, and perhaps amazed him by its strength, for he began immediately to explain away his answer. "Hum! not that exactly. But not a friend."

"And you want to do him an injury!" said Mackay, with grave consideration.

"No, I don't," said Percival, angrily, as if replying to a suggestion that had been made a thousand times before, and flinging out his arm with a reckless, agitated gesture. "I want to do him a service—confound him!"

There was a silence. Percival lay with his outstretched hand clenched and his eyes fixed gloomily on the opposite wall: Mackay turned away his head. Presently, however, he spoke in a low but distinct tone.

"What is the service you propose doing me, Mr. Heron?"

"Doing you? Good Heavens! You! What do you mean?"

"I suppose that my face is a good deal disfigured at present," said the steerage passenger, passing his hand lightly over his thick, brown beard; "but when it is better, you will probably recognise me easily enough. But, perhaps, I am mistaken. I thought for a moment that you were in search of a man called Stretton, who was formerly a tutor to your step-brothers."

Percival was standing erect by this time in the middle of the floor. His hands were thrust into his pockets: his deep chest heaved: the bronzed pallor of his face had turned to a dusky red. He did not answer the words spoken to him; but after a few seconds of silence, in which the eyes of the two men met and told each other a good deal, he strode to the doorway, pushed aside the plank which served for a door, and went out into the storm. 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.

When he had walked for some time and got thoroughly wet through, it occurred to him that he was acting more like a child than a grown man; and he turned his face as impetuously towards the huts as he had lately turned his back upon them. He found plenty to do when the rain ceased. The fire had for the first time gone out, and the patience of Jackson could not now be taxed, because he was lying on his back in the stupor of fever. Percival set one of the men to work with two sticks; but the wood was nearly all damp, and it was a weary business, even when two dry morsels were found, to get them to light. However, it was better than having nothing to do. Want of employment was one of their chief trials. The men could not always be catching fish and snaring birds. They were thinking of building a small boat; but Jackson's illness deprived them of the help of one who had more practical knowledge of such matters than any of the others, and threw a damp over their spirits as well.

Jackson's illness seemed to give Percival a pretext for absenting himself from the hut in which the so-called Mackay lay. He had, just at first, an invincible repugnance to meeting him again; he could not make up his mind how Brian Luttrell would expect to be treated, and he was almost morbidly sensitive about the mistake that he had made respecting "the steerage passenger." At night he stayed with Jackson, and sent the other men to sleep in Mackay's hut. But in the morning an absolute necessity arose for him to speak to his enemy.

Jackson was sensible, though extremely weak, when the daylight came: and his first remark was an anxious one concerning the state of his comrade's broken leg. "Will you look after it a bit, sir?" he said, wistfully, to Heron.

"I'll do my best. Don't bother yourself," said Percival, cheerfully. And accordingly he presented himself at an early hour in the other sleeping-place, and addressed Brian in a very matter of fact tone.

"Your leg must be seen to this morning. I shall make a poor substitute for Jackson, I'm afraid; but I think I shall do it better than Pollard or Fenwick."

"I've no doubt of that," said the man with the brown beard and bright, quick eyes. "Thank you."

And that was all that passed between them.

It was wonderful to see the determined, unsparing way in which Percival worked that day. His energy never flagged. He was a little less good-tempered than usual; the upright black line in his forehead was very marked, and his utterances were not always amiable. But he succeeded in his object; he made himself so thoroughly tired that he slept as soon as his head touched his hard pillow, and did not wake until the sun was high in the heaven. The men showed a good deal of consideration for him. Fenwick watched by the sick man, and Pollard and Barry bestirred themselves to get ready the morning meal, and to attend to the wants of their two helpless companions.

It was not until evening that Brian found an opportunity to say to Percival:—

"What did you want to find me for?"

"Can't you let the matter rest until we are off this —— island?" said Percival, losing control of that hidden fierceness for a moment.

And Brian answered rather coldly:—"As you please."

Percival waited awhile, and then said, more deliberately:—

"I'll tell you before long. There is no hurry, you see"—with a sort of grim humour—"there is no post to catch, no homeward-bound mail steamer in the harbour. We cannot give each other the slip now."

"Do you mean that I gave you the slip?" said Brian, to whom Percival's tone was charged with offence.

"I mean that Brian Luttrell would not have been allowed to leave England quite so easily as Mr. Stretton was. But I won't discuss it just now. You'll excuse my observing that I think I would drop the 'Mackay' if I were you. It will hurt nobody here if you are called Luttrell; and—I hate disguises."

"The name Luttrell is as much a disguise as any other," said Brian, shortly. "But you may use it if you choose."

He was hardly prepared, however, for the round eyes with which the lad Barry regarded him when he next entered the log hut, nor for the awkward way in which he gave a bashful smile and pulled the front lock of his hair when Brian spoke to him.

"What are you doing that for?" he said, quickly.

"Well, sir, it's Mr. Heron's orders," said Barry.

"What orders?"

"That we're to remember you're a gentleman, sir. Gone steerage in a bit of a freak; but now you've told him you'd prefer to be called by your proper name. Mr. Luttrell, that is."

"I'm no more a gentleman than you are," said Brian, abruptly. "Call me Mackay at once as you used to do."

Barry shook his head with a knowing look. "Daren't sir. Mr. Heron is a gentleman that will have his own way. And he said you had a big estate in Scotland, sir; and lots of money."

"What other tales did he tell you?" said Brian, throwing back his head restlessly.

"Well, I don't know, sir. Only he told us that we'd better nurse you up as well as we could before we left the island, and that there was one at home as would give money to see you alive and well. A lady, I think he meant."

"What insane folly!" muttered Brian to himself. "Look here, Barry," he added aloud, "Mr. Heron was making jokes at your expense and mine. He meant nothing of the kind; I haven't a penny in the world, and I'm on the way to the Brazils to earn my living as a working-man. Now do you understand?"

Barry retired, silenced but unconvinced. And the next time that Brian saw Percival alone, he said to him drily:—

"I would rather make my own romances about my future life, if it's all the same to you."

"Eh? What? What do you mean?"

"Don't tell these poor fellows that I have property in Scotland, please. It is not the case."

"Oh, that's what you're making a fuss about. But I can't help it," said Percival, shrugging his shoulders. "If you are Brian Luttrell, as Vasari swears you are—swearing it to his own detriment, too, which inclines me to believe that it is true—the Strathleckie estate is yours."

"You can't prove that I am Brian Luttrell."

"But I might prove—when we get back to Scotland—that you bore the name of Brian Luttrell for three or four-and-twenty years of your life."

"I am not going back to Scotland," said the young man, looking steadily and attentively at Percival's troubled countenance.

"Yes, you are. I promised that you should come back, and you must not make me break my word."

"Whom did you promise?"

"I promised Elizabeth."

And then the two men felt that the conversation had better cease. Percival walked rapidly away, while Brian, who could not walk anywhere, lay flat on his back and listened, with dreamy eyes, to the long monotonous rise and fall of the waves upon the shore.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH.

"Pollard's down with this fever," was the announcement which Percival made to Brian a few days later.

"Badly?"

"A smart touch. And Jackson doesn't mend as he ought to do. I can't understand why either of them should have it at all. The island may be barren, but it ought to be healthy."

"I wish I could do anything beside lying here like a log."

"Well, you can't," said Percival, by no means unkindly. "I never heard that it was any good to stand on a broken leg. I'll manage."

Such interchange of semi-confidential sentences was now rare between them. Percival was, for the most part, very silent when circumstances threw him into personal contact with Brian; and there was something repellant about this silence—something which prevented Brian from trying to break it. Brian was feeling bitterly that he had done Percival some wrong: he knew that he might justly be blamed for returning to Scotland after his supposed death. He need not have practised any deception at all, but, having practised it, he ought to have maintained it. He had no right to let the estates pass to Elizabeth unless he meant her to keep them. Such, he imagined, might well be Percival's attitude of mind towards him.

And then there was the question of his love for Elizabeth, of which both Elizabeth herself and Dino Vasari had made Heron aware. But in this there was nothing to be ashamed of. When he fell in love with Elizabeth, he thought her comparatively poor and friendless, and he did not know of her engagement to Percival. He never whispered to himself that he had won her heart: that fact, which Elizabeth fancied that she had made shamefully manifest, had not been grasped by Brian's consciousness at all. He would have thought himself a coxcomb to imagine that she cared for him more than as a friend. If he had ever dreamt of such a thing, he assured himself that he had made a foolish mistake.

He thought that he understood what Percival wanted to say to him. Of course, since Dino had disclosed the truth, Elizabeth Murray desired to give up the property, and her lover had volunteered to come in search of the missing man. It was a generous act, and one that Brian thoroughly admired: it was worthy, he thought, of Elizabeth's lover. For he knew that he had always been especially obnoxious to Percival Heron in his capacity as tutor; and now, if he were to assume the character of a claimant to Elizabeth's estates, he would certainly not find the road to Percival's liking. For his own part, Brian respected and liked Percival Heron much more than he had found it possible to do during those flying visits to Italy, when he had systematically made himself disagreeable to the unknown Mr. Stretton. He admired the way in which Percival assumed the leadership of the party, and bore the burden of all their difficulties on his own broad shoulders: he admired his cheerfulness and untiring energy. He was sure that if Heron could succeed in carrying him off to England, and forcing him to make Elizabeth a poor woman instead of a rich one, he would be only too pleased to do so. But this was a thing which Brian did not mean to allow.

Jackson's illness was a protracted one, and left him in a weak state, from which he had not recovered when Pollard died. Then the boy Barry fell ill—out of sheer fright, Percival declared; but his attack was a very slight one, prolonged from want of energy rather than real indisposition. Heron was the only nurse, for Fenwick's strength had to be utilised in procuring food for the party; and, as he was often up all night and busy all day long, it was no surprise to Brian when at last he staggered, rather than walked into the hut, and threw himself down on the ground, declaring himself so tired that he could not keep awake. And he had scarcely said the words when slumber overpowered him.

Brian, who was beginning to move about a very little, crawled to the door and managed to attract Fenwick's attention. The man—a rough, black-bearded sailor—came up to him with a less surly look than usual.

"How's Barry?" said Brian.

"Better. He's all right. They've both got round the corner now, though I think the master thought yesterday that Barry would follow Pollard. It was faint-heartedness as killed Pollard, and it's faint-heartedness that'll kill Barry, if he don't look out."

"See here," said Brian, indicating the sleeper with his finger. "You don't think Mr. Heron has got the fever, do you?"

Fenwick took a step forward and looked stolidly at Percival's face, which was very pale.

"Not he. Dead-beat, sir; that's all. He's done his work like a man, and earned a sleep. He'll be right when he wakes."

Armed with this assurance, Brian resumed his occupation of weaving cocoa-nut fibre; but he grew uneasy, when, at the end of a couple of hours, Percival's face began to flush and his limbs to toss restlessly upon the ground. He muttered incoherent words from time to time, and at last awoke and asked for water. Brian's walking was a matter of difficulty; he took some minutes in crossing the room to bring a cocoa-nut, which had been made into a cup, to Percival's side; and by the time he had done it, Heron was wide awake.

"What on earth are you doing, bringing me water in this way? You ought to be lying down, and I ought to go to Barry. If I were not so sleepy!"

"Go to sleep," said Brian. "Barry's all right. I asked Fenwick just now."

"I suppose I've gone and caught it," said Percival, in a decidedly annoyed tone of voice. "A nice state of things if I were to be laid up! I won't be laid up either. It's to a great extent a matter of will; look at Barry—and Pollard." His voice sank a little at the latter name.

"You're only tired: you will be all right presently."

"You don't think I'm going to have the fever, then?"

"No," said Brian, wondering a little at his anxiety.

There was a long pause: then Heron spoke again.

"Luttrell." It was the first time that he had addressed Brian by his name. "If I have the fever and go off my head as the others have all done, will you remember—it's just a fancy of mine—that I—I don't exactly want you to hear what I say! Leave me in this hut, or move me into the other one, will you?"

"I'll do as you wish," said Brian, seriously, "but I needn't tell you that I should attach no importance to what you said. And I should be pleased to do anything that I was able to do for you, if you were ill."

"Well," said Percival, "I may not be ill after all. But I thought I would mention it. And, Luttrell, supposing I were to follow Pollard's example—"

"What is the good of talking in that way when you are not even ill?"

"Never mind that. If you get off this island and I don't, I want you to promise me to go and see Elizabeth." Then, as Brian hesitated, "You must go. You must see her and talk to her; do you hear? Good Heavens! How can you hesitate? Do you mean to let her think for ever that I have betrayed her trust?"

Decidedly the fever was already working in his veins. The flushed face, the unnaturally brilliant eyes, the excitement of his manner, all testified to its presence. Brian felt compelled to answer quietly,

"I promise."

"All right," said Percival, lying down again and closing his eyes. "And now you can tell Fenwick that he's got another patient. It's the fever; I know the signs."

And he was right. But the fever took a different course with him from that which it had taken with the others: he was never delirious at all, but lay in a death-like stupor from which it seemed that he might not awake. Once—some days after the beginning of his illness—he came to himself for a few minutes with unexpected suddenness. It was midnight, and there was no light in the hut beyond that which came from the brilliant radiance of the moon as it shone in at the open door. Percival opened his eyes and made a sound, to which Brian answered immediately by giving him something to drink.

"You've broken your promise," said Percival, in a whisper, keeping his eyes fixed suspiciously on Brian's face.

"No. You have never been delirious, so I never needed to leave you."

"A quibble," murmured Heron, with the faintest possible smile. "However—I'm not sorry to have you here. You'll stay now, even if I talk nonsense?"

"Of course I will." Brian was glad of the request.

In another moment the patient had relapsed into insensibility; but, curiously enough, after this, conversation, Percival's mind began to wander, and he "talked nonsense" as persistently as the others had done. Brian could not see why he had at first told him to keep away. He was quite prepared for some revelation of strong feeling against himself, but none ever came. Elizabeth's name occurred very frequently; but for the most, part, it was connected with reminiscences of the past of which Brian knew nothing. Early meetings, walks about London, boy and girl quarrels were talked of, but about recent events he was silent.

Brian wondered whether he himself and Fenwick would also succumb to the malarious influences of the place; but these two escaped. Fenwick was never ill; and Brian grew stronger every day. When Percival opened his eyes once more upon him, after three weeks of illness, he said, abruptly:—

"Ah, if you had looked like that when you came on board the Arizona, I should never have been deceived."

Brian smiled, and made no answer. Percival watched him hobbling about the room for some minutes, and then said:—

"How long have we been on the island?"

"Forty-seven days."

"And not a sail in sight the whole time?"

"Two, but they did not come near enough to see our signals—or passed them by."

"My God!" said Percival, faintly. "Will it never end?" And then he turned away his face.

After a little silence he asked, uneasily:—

"Did I say much when I was ill?"

"Nothing of any consequence."

"But about you," said Percival, turning his hollow eyes on Brian with painful earnestness, "did I talk about you? Did I say——"

"You never mentioned my name so far as I know. So make your mind easy on that score. Now, don't talk any more: you are not fit for it. You must eat, and drink, and sleep, so as to be ready when that dilatory ship comes to take us off."

Percival did his duty in these respects. He was a more docile patient than Brian had expected to find him. But he did not seem to recover his buoyant spirits with his strength. He had long fits of melancholy brooding, in which the habitual line between his brows became more marked than ever. But it was not until two or three weeks more of their strangely monotonous existence had passed by, that Brian Luttrell got any clue to the kind of burden that was weighing upon Heron's mind.

The day had been fiercely hot, but the night was cool, and Brian had half-closed the door through which the sea-breeze was blowing, and the light of the stars shone down. He and Percival continued to share this hut (the other being tenanted by the three seamen), and Brian was sitting on the ground, stirring up a compound of cocoa-nut milk, eggs and brandy, with which he meant to provide Percival for supper. Percival lay, as usual, on his couch, watching his movements by the starlight. When the draught had been swallowed, Heron said:—

"Don't go to sleep yet. I wish you would sit down here. I want to say something."

Brian complied, and Percival went on in his usual abrupt fashion.

"You know I rather thought I should not get better."

"I know."

"It might have been more convenient if I had not. Did you never feel so?"

"No, never."

"If I had been buried on the Rocas Reef," said Percival, with biting emphasis, "you would have kept your promise, gone back to England, and—married Elizabeth."

"I never considered that possibility," answered Brian, with perfect quietness and some coldness.

"Then you're a better fellow than I am. Look here," said Percival, with vehemence, "in your place I could not have nursed a man through an illness as you have done. The temptation would have been too strong: I should have killed him."

"I am sure you would have done nothing of the kind, Heron. You are incapable of treachery."

"You won't say so when you know all that I am going to tell you. Prepare your mind for deeds of villainy," said Percival, rallying his forces and trying to laugh; "for I am going to shock your virtuous ear. It's been on my mind ever since I was taken ill; and I was so afraid that I should let it out when I was light-headed, that, as you know, I asked you not to stay with me."

"Don't tell me now: I'll take it on trust. Any time will do," said Brian, shrinking a little from the allusion to his own story that he knew would follow.

"No time like the present," responded Heron, obstinately. "I've been a pig-headed brute; that's the chief thing. Now, don't interrupt, Luttrell. 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. She had mentioned that to me, too; or rather I made her tell me."

"Dino confessed that he had been to you," said Brian, who was sitting with his hand arched over his eyes. "He had some wild idea of making a sort of compromise about the property, to which I was to be a party."

"Did he tell you the terms of the compromise?"

"No."

"Then I won't—just now. I'll tell you what I did, Luttrell, and you may call me a cad for it, if you like: I refused to do anything towards bringing about this compromise, and, although I knew when you were to sail, I did not try to detain you! You should have heard the blowing-up I had afterwards from old Colquhoun for not dropping a word to him!"

"I am very glad you did not. He could not have hindered me."

"Yes, he could. Or I could. Some of us would have hindered you, you may depend on it. And, if I had said that word, don't you see, you would never have set foot in the Falcon nor I in the Arizona, and we should both have been safe at home, instead of disporting ourselves, like Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday, on a desert island."

"It's too late to think of that now," said Brian, rather sadly.

"Too late! that's the worst of it. You've the right to reproach me. Of course, I know I was to blame."

"No, I don't see that. I don't reproach you in the least. You knew so little, that it must have seemed unnecessary to make a fuss about what you had heard."

"I heard quite enough," said Percival, with a short laugh. "I knew what I ought to do—and I didn't do it. That's the long and the short of it. If I had spoken, you would not be here. That makes the sting of it to me now."

"Don't think of that. I don't mind. You made up for all by coming after me."

"I think," said Percival, emphatically, "that if a word could have killed you when I first knew who you were, you wouldn't have had much chance of life, Luttrell. I was worse than that afterwards. If ever I had the temptation to take a man's life——"

"Keep all that to yourself," said Brian, in a quick, resolute tone. "There is no use in telling it to me. You conquered the temptation, if there was one; that I know; and if there was anything else, forget it, as I shall forget what you have told me. I have something to ask your pardon for, besides."

Percival's chest heaved; the emotion of the moment found vent in one audible sob. He stretched out his hand, which Brian clasped in silence. For a few minutes neither of them spoke.

"It was chiefly to prove to myself that I was not such a black sheep as some persons declared me to be, that I made up my mind to follow you and bring you back," said Percival, with his old liveliness of tone. "You see I had been more selfish than anybody knew. Shall I tell you how?"

"If you like."

"You say you don't know what Dino Vasari suggested. That subtle young man made a very bold proposition. He said he would give up his claim to the property if I would relinquish my claim to Miss Murray's hand. The property and the hand thus set at liberty were both to be bestowed upon you, Mr. Brian Luttrell. Dino Vasari was then to retire to his monastery, and I to mine—that is, to my bachelor's diggings and my club—after annihilating time and space 'to make two lovers happy.'"

"Don't jest on that subject," said Brian in a low, pained tone. "What a wild idea! Poor Dino!"

"Poor me, I think, since I was to be in every sense the loser. I am sorry to say I didn't treat your friend with civility, Luttrell. After your departure, however, he went himself to Netherglen, and there, it seems, he put the finishing stroke to any claim that he might have on the property." And then Percival proceeded to relate, as far as he knew it, the story of Dino's visit to Mrs. Luttrell, its effect on Mrs. Luttrell's health, and the urgent necessity that there was for Brian to return and arrange matters with Elizabeth. Brian tried to evade the last point, but Percival insisted on it so strongly that he was obliged to give him a decisive answer.

"No," he said, at last. "I'm sorry to make it seem as if your voyage had been in vain; but, if we ever get off the Rocas Reef, I shall go on to the Brazils. There is not the least reason for me to go home. I could not possibly touch a penny of the Luttrells' money after what has happened. Miss Murray must keep it."

"But, you see, there will be legal forms to go through, even if she does keep it, for which your presence will be required."

"You don't mean that, Heron; you know I can do all that in writing."

"You won't get Miss Murray to touch a farthing of it either."

"You must persuade her," said Brian, calmly. "I think you will understand my feeling, when I say that I would rather she had it—she and you—than anybody in the world."

"You must come back. I promised to bring you back," returned Percival, with some agitation of manner. "I said that I would not go back without you."

"I will write to Mr. Colquhoun and explain."

"Confound it! What Colquhoun thinks does not signify. It is Elizabeth whom I promised."

"Well," said Brian slowly, and with some difficulty, "I think I can explain it to her, too, if you will let me write to her."

Percival suppressed a groan.

"Why should I go back?" asked Luttrell. "I see no reason."

"And I wish you did not drive me to tell you the reason," said Percival, in crabbed, reluctant tones. "But it must come, sooner or later. If you won't go for any other reason, will you go when I tell you that Elizabeth Murray cares for you as she never cared for me, and never will care for any other man in the world? That was why I came to fetch you back; and, if you don't find it a reason for going back and marrying her, why—you deserve to stop on the Rocas Reef for the remainder of your natural life!"



CHAPTER XL.

KITTY.

Winter had come to our cold northern isles. The snow lay thick upon the ground, but a sharp frost had made it hard and crisp. It sparkled in a flood of brilliant sunshine; the air was fresh and exhilarating, the sky transparently blue. It was a pleasant day for walking, and one that Miss Kitty Heron seemed thoroughly to enjoy, as she trod the white carpet with which nature had provided the world.

She carried a little basket on her arm: a basket filled with good things for some children in a cottage not far from Strathleckie. The good things were of Elizabeth's providing; but Kitty acted as her almoner. Kitty was a very charming almoner, with her slight, graceful little figure and mignonne face set off by a great deal of brown fur and a dress of deep Indian red. The sharpness in the air brought a faint colour to her cheeks—Kitty was generally rather pale—and a new brightness to her pretty eyes. There was something delightfully bewitching about her: something provoking and coquettish: something of which Hugo Luttrell was pleasantly conscious as he came down the road to meet her and then walked for a little way at her side.

They did not say very much. There were a few ardent speeches from him, a vehement sort of love-making, which Kitty parried with a good deal of laughing adroitness, some saucy speeches from her which all the world might have heard, and then the cottage was reached.

"Let me go in with you," said Hugo.

"Certainly not. You would frighten the children."

"Am I so very terrible? Not to you; don't say that I frighten you."

"I should think not," said Kitty, with a little toss sideways of her dainty head. "I am frightened of nothing."

"I should think not. I should think that you were the bravest of women, as you are the most charming."

"Oh, please! I am not accustomed to these compliments. I must take my cakes to the children. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Hugo, taking her hand, and keeping it in his own while he spoke. "I may wait for you here and go back with you to Strathleckie, may I not?"

"Oh, dear, no," said Kitty. "You'll catch cold."

Then she looked down at her imprisoned hand, and up into his face, sweetly smiling all the time, and, if they had not been within sight of the cottage windows, Hugo would have taken her in his arms and kissed her there and then.

"I never catch cold. I shall walk about here till you come back. You don't dislike my company, I hope?"

It was said vehemently, with a sudden kindling of his dark eyes.

"Oh, no," answered Kitty, feeling rather frightened, in spite of her previous professions of courage, though she did not quite know why. "I shall be very pleased. I must go now." And then she vanished hastily into the cottage.

Hugo waited for some time, little guessing the fact that she was protracting her visit as much as possible, and furtively peeping through the blinds now and then in order to see if he were gone. Kitty had had some experience of his present mood, and was not certain that she liked it. But his patience was greater than hers. She was forced to come out at last, and before she had gone two steps he was at her side.

"I thought you were never going to leave that wretched hole," he said.

"Don't call it a wretched hole. It is very clean and nice. I often think that I should like to live in a cottage like that."

"With someone who loved you," said Hugo, coming nearer, and gazing into her face.

Kitty made a little moue.

"The cottage would only hold one person comfortably," she said.

"Then you shall not live in a cottage. You shall live in a far pleasanter place. What should you say to a little villa on the shores of the Mediterranean, with orange groves behind it, and the beautiful blue sea before? Should you like that, Kitty? You have only to say the word, and you know that it will be yours."

"Then I won't say the word," said Kitty, turning away her head. "I like Scotland better than the Mediterranean."

"Then let it be Scotland. What should you say to Netherglen?"

"I prefer Strathleckie," replied the girl, with her most provoking smile.

"That is no answer. You must give me an answer some day," said Hugo, whose voice was beginning to tremble. "You know what I mean: you know——"

"Oh, what a lovely bit of bramble in the hedge!" cried Kitty, making believe that she had not been listening. "Look, it has still a leaf or two, and the stem is frosted all over and the veins traced in silver! Do get it for me: I must take it home."

Hugo did her bidding rather unwillingly; but his sombre eyes were lighted with a reluctant smile, or a sort of glow that did duty for a smile, as she thanked him.

"It is beautiful: it is like a piece of fairies' embroidery; far more beautiful than jewels would be. Oh, I wonder how people can make such a fuss about jewels, when they are so much less beautiful than these simple, natural things."

"These will soon melt away; jewels won't melt," said Hugo. "I should like to see you with jewels on your neck and arms—you ought to be covered with diamonds."

"That is not complimentary," laughed Kitty, "it sounds as if you thought they would make me better-looking. Now, you should compliment a person on what she is, and not on what she might be."

"I have got beyond the complimentary stage," said Hugo. "What is the use of telling you that you are the most beautiful girl I ever met, or the most charming, or anything of that kind? The only thing I know"—and he lowered his voice almost to a whisper, and spoke with a fierce intensity that made Kitty shrink away from him—"the only thing I know is that you are the one woman in the world for me, and that I would sooner see you dead at my feet than married to another man!"

Kitty had turned pale: how was she to reply? She cast her eyes up and down the road in search of some suggestion. Oh, joy and relief! she saw a figure in the distance. Perhaps it was somebody from Strathleckie; they were not far from the lodge now. She spoke with renewed courage, but she did not know exactly what she said.

"Who is this coming down the road? He is going up to Strathleckie, I believe; he seems to be pausing at the gates. Oh, I hope it is a visitor. I do like having the house full; and we have been so melancholy since Percival went on that horrid expedition to Brazil. Who can it be?"

"What does it matter?" said Hugo. "Can you not listen to me for one moment? Kitty—darling—wait!"

"I can't; I really can't!" said Kitty, quickening her pace almost to a run. "Oh, Hugo—Mr. Luttrell—you must not say such things—besides—look, it's Mr. Vivian; it really is! I haven't seen him for two years."

And she actually ran away from him, coming face to face with her old friend, at the Strathleckie gates.

Hugo followed sullenly. He did not like to be repulsed in that way. And he had reasons for wishing to gain Kitty's consent to a speedy marriage. He wanted to leave the country before the return of Percival Heron, whose errand to South America he guessed pretty accurately, although Mr. Colquhoun had thought fit to leave him in the dark about it. Hugo surmised, moreover, that Dino had told Brian Luttrell the history of Hugo's conduct to him in London: if so, Brian Luttrell was the last man whom Hugo desired to meet. And if Brian returned to England with Percival, the story would probably become known to the Herons; and then how could he hope to marry Kitty? With Brian's return, too, some alteration in Mrs. Luttrell's will might possibly be expected. The old lady's health had lately shown signs of improvement: if she were to recover sufficiently to indicate her wishes to her son, Hugo might find himself deprived of all chance of Netherglen. For these reasons he was disposed to press for a speedy conclusion to the matter.

He came up to the gates, and found Kitty engaged in an animated conversation with Mr. Vivian; her cheeks were carnation, and her eyes brilliant. She was laughing with rather forced vivacity as he approached. In his opinion she had seldom appeared to more advantage; while to Rupert's eyes she seemed to have altered for the worse. Dangerously, insidiously pretty, she was, indeed; but a vain little thing, no doubt; a finished coquette by the way she talked and lifted her eyes to Hugo's handsome face; possibly even a trifle fast and vulgar. Not the simple child of sixteen whom he had last seen in Gower-street.

"Won't you come in, Hugo? I am sure everybody would be pleased to see you," said poor Kitty, unconscious of being judged, as she tried to propitiate Hugo by a pleading look. She did not like him to go away with such a cross look upon his face—that was all. But as she did not say that she would be pleased to see him, Hugo only sulked the more.

"How cross he looks! I am rather glad he is not coming in," said Kitty, confidentially, as Hugo walked away, and she escorted Rupert up the long and winding drive. "And where did you come from? I did not know that you were near us."

"I have been staying at Lord Cecil's, thirty miles from Dunmuir. I thought that I should like to call, as you were still in this neighbourhood. I wrote to Mrs. Heron about it. I hope she received my note?"

"I see you don't know the family news," said Kitty, with a beaming smile. "I have a new stepsister, just three weeks old, and Isabel is already far too much occupied with the higher education of women to attend to such trifles as notes. She generally hands them over to Elizabeth or papa. Then, you know, papa broke one of his ribs and his collar-bone a fortnight ago, and I expect that this accident will keep us at Strathleckie for another month or two."

"That accounts for you being here so late in the year."

"Or so early! This is January, not December. But I think we may stay until the spring. It is not worth while to take a London house now."

Kitty spoke so dolefully that Rupert was obliged to smile. "You are sorry for that?" he said.

"Yes. We are all rather dull; we want something to enliven us. I hope you will enliven us, Mr. Vivian."

"I am afraid I can hardly hope to do so," said Rupert, coldly. "Of course, you have not the occupation that you used to have when you were in London."

"When I went to school! No, I should think not," said Kitty, with her giddiest laugh. "I have locked up my lesson books and thrown away the key. So you must not lecture me on my studies as you used to do, Mr. Vivian."

"I should not presume to do so," he said, with rather unnecessary stiffness.

"But you used to do it! Have you forgotten?" asked Kitty, peeping up at him archly from under her long, curling eyelashes. There was a momentary smile upon his lips, but it disappeared as he answered quietly:—

"What was allowable when you were a child, would justly be resented by you now, Miss Heron."

"I should not resent it; indeed I should not mind," said Kitty, eagerly. "I should like it: I always like being lectured, and told what I ought to do. I should be glad if you would scold me again about my reading; I have nobody to tell me anything now."

"I could not possibly take the responsibility," said Rupert. "If you have thrown away the key of your book-box, Miss Heron, I don't think that you will be anxious to find it again."

"Oh, but the lock could be picked!" cried Kitty, and then repented her words, for Rupert's impassive face showed no interest beyond that required by politeness. The tears were very near her eyes, but she got rid of them somehow, and plunged into a neat and frosty style of conversation which she heartily detested. "This is Strathleckie; you have never seen it before, I think? It is on the Leckie property, but it is not an old place like Netherglen. I think it was built in 1840."

"Not a very good style of architecture," said Rupert, scanning it with an attentive eye.

"A good style of architecture, indeed!" commented Kitty to herself, as she ran away to her own room, after committing Mr. Vivian to the care of her step-mother, who was lying on a sofa in the drawing-room, quite ready to unfold her views about the higher education of girls. "What a piece of ice he is! He used not to be so frigid. I wonder if we offended him in any way before we left London. He has never been nice since then. Nice? He is simply hateful!" and Kitty stamped on the floor of her bed-room with alarming vehemence, but the crystal drops that had been so long repressed were trembling on her eyelashes, and giving to her face the grieved look of a child.

Meanwhile Vivian was thinking:—"What a pity she is so spoilt! A coquettish, hare-brained flirt: that is all that she is now, and she promised to be a sweet little woman two years ago! What business had she to be out walking with Hugo Luttrell? I should have heard of it if they were going to be married. I suppose she has had nobody to look after her. And yet Miss Murray always struck me as a sensible, staid kind of girl. Why can she not keep her cousin in order?" And then Rupert was conscious of a certain sense of impatience for Kitty's return, much as he disapproved of her alluring ways.

He was prevailed on to stay the night, and his visit was prolonged day after day, until it was accepted as a settled thing that he would remain for some time—perhaps even until Percival came home. It had been calculated that Percival might easily be home in February.

He could not easily maintain the coldness and reserve with which he had begun to treat Kitty Heron. There was something so winning and so childlike about her at times, that he dropped unconsciously into the old familiar tone. Then he would try to draw back, and would succeed, perhaps, in saying something positively rude or unkind, which would bring the tears to her eyes, and the flush of vexation to her face. At least, if it was not really unkind it sounded so to Kitty, and that came to the same thing. And when she was vexed, he was illogical enough to feel uncomfortable.

But Kitty's crowning offence was her behaviour at a dinner-party, on the occasion of the christening of Mrs. Heron's little girl. Hugo Luttrell and the two young Grants from Dunmuir were amongst the guests; and with them Kitty amused herself. She did not mean any harm, poor child; she chattered gaily and looked up into their faces, with a gleeful consciousness that Rupert was watching her, and that she could show him now that some people admired her if he did not. Archie Grant certainly admired her prodigiously; he haunted her steps all through the evening, hung over the piano when she sang a gay little French chanson; turned over a portfolio of Mr. Heron's sketches with her in a corner. On the other hand, Hugo, who took her in to dinner, whispered things to her that made her start and blush. Vivian would have liked very much to know what he said. He did not approve of that darkly handsome face, with the haggard, evil-looking eyes, being thrust so close to Kitty's soft cheeks and pretty flower-decked head. He was glad to think that he had prevailed on Angela to leave Netherglen. He was not fond of Hugo Luttrell.

He was stiffer and graver than usual that evening; not even the appearance of the newly-christened Dorothy Elizabeth, in a very long white robe, won a smile from him. He never approached Kitty—never said a word to her—until he was obliged to say good-night. And then she looked up to him with her dancing eyes and pretty smile, and said:—

"You never came near me all the evening, and you had promised to sing a duet with me."

"Is the little coquette trying her wiles on me!" thought Rupert, sternly; but aloud he answered, with grave indifference,

"You were better employed. You had your own friends."

"And are you not a friend?" cried Kitty, biting her lip.

"I am not your contemporary. I cannot enter into competition with these younger men," he answered, quietly.

Kitty quitted him in a rage. Elizabeth encountered her as she ran upstairs, her cheeks crimson, her lips quivering, her eyes filled with tears.

"My dear Kitty, what is the matter?" she said, laying a gently detaining hand on the girl's arm.

"Nothing—nothing at all," declared Kitty; but she suffered herself to be drawn into Elizabeth's room, and there, sinking into a low seat by the fire, she detailed her wrongs. "He hates me; I know he does, and I hate him! He thinks me a horrid, frivolous girl; and so I am! But he needn't tell me that he does not want to be a friend of mine!"

"Well, perhaps, you are rather too old to take him for a friend in the way you used to do," said Elizabeth, smiling a little. "You were a child then; and you are eighteen now, you know, Kitty. He treats you as a woman: that is all. It is a compliment."

"Then I don't like his compliments: I hate them!" Kitty asseverated. "I would rather he let me alone."

"Don't think about him, dear. If he does not want to be friendly with you, don't try to be friendly with him."

"I won't," said Kitty, in the tone of one who has taken a solemn resolution. Then she rose, and surveyed herself critically in Elizabeth's long mirror. "I am sure I looked very nice," she said. "This pink dress suits me to perfection and the lace is lovely. And then the silver ornaments! I'm glad I did not wear anything that he gave me, at any rate. I nearly put on the necklace he sent me when I was seventeen; I'm glad I did not."

"Dearest Kitty, why should you mind what he thinks?" said Elizabeth, coming to her side, and looking at the exquisitely-pretty little figure reflected in the glass, a figure to which her own, draped in black lace, formed a striking contrast. But she was almost sorry that she had said the words, for Kitty immediately threw herself on her cousin's shoulder and burst into tears. The fit of crying did not last long, and Kitty was unfeignedly ashamed of it: she dried her tears with a very useless-looking lace handkerchief, laughed at herself hysterically, and then ran away to her own room, leaving Elizabeth to wish that the sense and spirit that really existed underneath that butterfly-like exterior would show itself on the surface a little more distinctly.

But the last thing she dreamed of was that Kitty, with all her little follies, would outrage Rupert's sense of the proprieties in the way she did in the course of the following morning.

Rupert was standing alone in the drawing-room, looking out of a window which commanded an extensive view. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Heron had come downstairs. Kitty had breakfasted in her own room; Elizabeth was busy. Mr. Vivian was wondering whether it might not be as well to go back to London. It vexed him to see little Kitty Heron flirting with half-a-dozen men at once.

A voice at the door caused him to turn round. Kitty was entering, and as her hands were full, she had some difficulty in turning the handle. Rupert moved forward to assist her, and uttered a courteous good-morning, but Kitty only looked at him with flushed cheeks and wide-open resentful eyes, and made no answer.

She was wearing an embroidered apron over her dark morning frock, and this apron, gathered up by the corners in her hands, was full of various articles which Rupert could not see. He was thoroughly taken aback, therefore, when she poured its contents in an indiscriminate heap upon the sofa, and said, in a decided tone:—

"There are all the things you ever gave me; and I would rather not keep them any longer. I take presents only from my friends."

Foolish Kitty!



CHAPTER XLI.

KITTY'S FRIENDS.

"How have I had the misfortune to offend you?" said Rupert, in a voice from which he could not banish irony as completely as he would have liked to do.

"You said so yourself," replied Kitty, facing him with the dignity of a small princess. "You said that you were not my friend now."

"When did I make that statement?" said Rupert, lifting his eyebrows.

"Last night. And I knew it. You are not kind as you used to be. It does not matter to me at all; only I felt that I did not like to keep these things—and I brought them back."

"And what am I to do with them?" said Rupert, approaching the sofa and looking at the untidy little heap. He gave a subdued laugh, which offended Kitty dreadfully.

"I don't see anything to laugh at," she said.

"Neither do I." But the smile still trembled on his finely-cut mouth. "What did you mean me to do with these things?" he asked. "These are trifles: why don't you throw them into the fire if you don't value them?"

"They are not all trifles; and I did value them before you came to see us this time," said Kitty, with a lugubriousness which ought to have convinced him of her sincerity. "There are some bangles, and a cup and saucer, and two books; and there is the chain that you sent me by Mr. Luttrell in the autumn."

"Ah, that chain," said Vivian, and then he took it up and weighed it lightly in his hand. "I have never seen you wear it. I thought at first that you had got it on last night: but my eyes deceived me. My sight is not so good as it used to be. Really, Miss Heron, you make me ashamed of my trumpery gifts: pray take them away, and let me give you something prettier on your next birthday for old acquaintance sake."

"No, indeed!" said Kitty.

"And why not? Because I don't treat you precisely as I did when you were twelve? You really would not like it if I did. No, I shall be seriously offended if you do not take these things away and say no more about them. It would be perfectly impossible for me to take them back; and I think you will see—afterwards—that you should not have asked me to do so."

The accents of that calmly inflexible voice were terrible to Kitty. He turned to the window and looked out, but, becoming impatient of the silence, walked back to her again, and saw that her face had grown white, and was quivering as if she had received a blow. Her eyes were fixed upon the sofa, and her fingers held the chain which he had quietly placed within them; but it was evident that she was doing battle with herself to prevent the tears from falling. Rupert felt some remorse: and then hardened himself by a remembrance of the glances that had been exchanged between her and Hugo in that very room the night before.

"I am old enough to be your father, you know," he began, gravely. This statement was not quite true, but it was true enough for conversational purposes. "I have sent you presents on your birthday since you were a very little girl, and I hope I may always do so. There is no need for you to reject them, because I think it well to remember that you are not a child any longer, but a young lady who has 'come out,' and wears long frocks, and does her hair very elaborately," he said, casting a smiling glance at Kitty's carefully-frizzled head. "I certainly do not wish to cease to be friends with—all of you; and I hope you will not drive me away from a house where I have been accustomed to forget the cares of the world a little, and find pleasant companionship and relaxation."

"Oh, Mr. Vivian!" said Kitty, in a loud whisper. The suggestion that she had power to drive him away seemed almost impious. She felt completely crushed.

"Don't think any more about it," said Rupert, kindly, if condescendingly. "I never wished to be less of a friend to you than I was when you lived in Gower-street; but you must remember that you are a great deal altered from the little girl that I used to know."

Kitty could not speak; she stooped and began to gather the presents again into her apron. Vivian came and helped her. He could not forbear giving her hand a little kindly pat when he had finished, as if he had been dealing with a child. But the playful caress, if such it might be called, had no effect on Kitty's sore and angry feelings. She was terribly ashamed of herself now: she could hardly bear to remember his calmly superior tone, his words of advice, which seemed to place her on a so much lower footing than himself.

But in a day or two this feeling wore off. He was so kindly and friendly in manner, that she was emboldened to laugh at the recollection of the tone in which he had alluded to her elaborately-dressed hair and long dresses, and to devise a way of surprising him. She came down one day to afternoon tea in an old school-girlish dress of blue serge, rather short about the ankles, a red and white pinafore, and a crimson sash. Her hair was loose about her neck, and had been combed over her forehead in the fashion in which she wore it in her childish days. Thus attired, she looked about fourteen years old, and the shy way in which she glanced at the company from under her eyelashes, added to the impression of extreme youth. To carry out the character, she held a battledore and shuttlecock in her hand.

"Kitty, are you rehearsing for a fancy ball?" said Mrs. Heron.

"No, Isabel. I only thought I would try to transform myself into a little girl again, and see what it felt like. Do I look very young indeed?"

"You look about twelve. You absurd child!"

"Is the battledore for effect, or are you going to play a game with it?" asked Rupert, who had been surveying her with cold criticism in his eyes.

"For effect, of course. Don't you think it is a very successful attempt?" she said, looking up at him saucily.

He made no answer. Elizabeth wanted the tea-kettle at that moment, and he moved to fetch it. Hugo Luttrell, however, who was paying a call at the house, was ready enough with a reply.

"It could not be more successful," he said, looking at her admiringly. "I suppose"—in a lowered tone—"that you looked like this in the school-room. I am glad those days are over, at any rate."

"I am not," said Kitty, helping herself to bread and butter. "I should like them all over again—lessons and all." She stole a glance at Rupert, but his still face betrayed no consciousness of her remark. "I am going to keep up my character. I am going to play at battledore and shuttlecock with the boys in the dining-room. Who will come, too? Qui m'aime me suit."

"Then I will be the first to follow," said Hugo, in her ear.

She pouted and drank her tea, glancing half-reluctantly toward Rupert. But he would not heed.

"I will come, too," said Elizabeth, relieving the awkwardness of a rather long pause. "I always like to see you play. Kitty is as light as a bird," she added to Mr. Vivian, who bowed and looked profoundly uninterested.

Nevertheless, in a few minutes he found the drawing-room so dull without the young people, that he, too, descended to see what was going on. He heard the sound of counting in breathless voices as he drew near the drawing-room. "Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, three hundred. One, two, three——"

"Kitty and Mr. Luttrell have kept up to three hundred and three, Mr. Vivian!" cried one of the boys as he entered the room.

Mr. Vivian joined the spectators. It was a pretty sight. Kitty, with her floating locks, flushed face, trim, light figure, and unerring accuracy of eye, was well measured against Hugo's lithe grace and dexterity. The two went on until eight hundred and twenty had been reached; then the shuttlecock fell to the ground. Kitty had glanced aside and missed her aim.

"You must try, now, Mr. Vivian," she said, advancing towards him, battledore in hand, and smiling triumphantly in his face.

"No, thank you," said Rupert, who had been shading his eyes with one hand, as if the light of the lamps had tried them: "I could not see."

"Could you not? Oh, you are short-sighted, perhaps. Ah! there go Hugo and Johnny. This is better than being grown-up, I think. Am I like the little girl that you used to know in Gower-street now, Mr. Vivian?"

It was perhaps her naming Hugo so familiarly that caused Rupert to reply, with a smile that was more cutting than reproof would have been:—

"I prefer the little girl in Gower-street still."

From the colour that instantly overspread her face and neck, he saw that she was hurt or offended—he did not know which. She left his side immediately, and plunged into the game with renewed ardour. She played until Hugo left the house about seven o'clock; and then she rushed up to her room and bolted herself in with unnecessary violence. She came down to dinner in a costume as different as possible from the one which she had worn in the afternoon. Her dress was of some shining white stuff, very long, very much trimmed, cut very low at the neck; her hair was once more touzled, curled and pinned, in its most elaborate fashion; and her gold necklet and bracelets were only fit for a dinner-party. It is to be feared that Rupert Vivian did not admire her taste in dress. If she had worn white cotton it would had pleased him better.

There was a wall between them once more. She was more conscious of it than he was, but he did not perceive that something was wrong. He saw that she would not look at him, would not speak to him; he supposed that he had offended her. He himself was aware of an increasing feeling of dissatisfaction—whether with her, or with her circumstances, he could not define—and this feeling found expression in a sentence which he addressed to her two days after the game of battledore and shuttlecock. Hugo had been to the house again, and had been even less guarded than usual in his love-making. Kitty meant to put a stop to it sooner or later; but she did not quite know how to do it (not having had much experience in these matters, in spite of the coquettishness which Rupert attributed to her), and also she did not want to do it just at present, because of her instinctive knowledge of the fact that it annoyed Mr. Vivian. She was too much of a child to know that she was playing with edged tools.

So she allowed Hugo a very long hand-clasp when he said good-bye, and held a whispered consultation with him at the door in a confidential manner, which put Rupert very much out of temper. Then she came back to the drawing-room fire, laughing a little, with an air of pretty triumph. Rupert was leaning against the mantelpiece; no one else was in the room. Kitty knelt down on the rug, and warmed her hands at the fire.

"We have such a delightful secret, Hugo and I," she said, brightly. "You would never guess what it was. Shall I tell it to you?"

"No," he answered, shortly.

"No?" She lifted her eyebrows in astonishment, and then shrugged her shoulders. "You are not very polite to me, Mr. Vivian!" she said, half-playfully, half-pettishly.

"I do not wish to share any secret that you and Mr. Hugo Luttrell may have between you," said Rupert, with emphasis.

Kitty's face changed a little. "Don't you like him?" she said, in a rather timid voice.

"Before I answer I should like to know whether you are engaged to marry him," said Mr. Vivian.

"Certainly not. I never dreamt of such a thing. You ought not to ask such a question," said Kitty, turning scarlet.

"I suppose I ought not. I beg your pardon. But I thought it was the case."

"Why should you think so?" said Kitty, turning her face away from him. "You would have heard about it, you know—and besides—nobody ever thought of such a thing."

"Excuse me: Mr. Luttrell seems to have thought of it," said Rupert, with rather an angry laugh.

"What Mr. Luttrell thinks of is no business of yours," said Kitty.

"You cannot deny it then!" exclaimed Vivian, with a mixture of bitterness and sarcastic triumph in his tone.

She made no answer. He could not see her face, but the way in which she was twisting her fingers together spoke of some agitation. He tried to master himself; but he was under the empire of an emotion of which he himself had not exactly grasped the meaning nor estimated the power. He walked to the window and back again somewhat uncertainly; then paused at about two yards' distance from her kneeling figure, and addressed her in a voice which he kept carefully free from any trace of excitement.

"I have no right to speak, I know," he said, "and, if I were not so much older than yourself, or if I had not promised to be your friend, Kitty, I would keep silence. I want you to be on your guard with that man. He is not the sort of man that you ought to encourage, or whom you would find any happiness in loving."

"I thought it was not considered generous for one man to blacken another's character behind his back," said Kitty, quickly.

"Well, you are right, it is not. If I had put myself into rivalry with Hugo Luttrell, of course, I should have to hold my tongue. But as I am only an outsider—an old friend who takes a kindly interest in the child that he has seen grow up—I think I am justified in saying, Kitty, that I do not consider young Luttrell worthy of you."

The calm, unimpassioned tones produced their usual effect on poor Kitty. She felt thoroughly crushed. And yet there was a rising anger in her heart. What reason had Rupert Vivian to hold himself so far aloof from her? Was he not Percival's friend? Why should he look down from such heights of superiority upon Percival's sister?

"I speak to you in this way," Rupert went on, with studied quietness, "because you have less of the guardianship usually given to girls of your age than most girls have. Mrs. Heron is, I know, exceedingly kind and amiable, but she has her own little ones to think of, and then she, too, is young. Miss Murray, although sensible and right-thinking in every way, is too near your own age to be a guide for you. Percival is away. Therefore, you must let me take an elder brother's place to you for once, and warn you when I see that you are in danger."

Kitty had risen from her knees, and was now standing, with her face still averted, and her lips hidden by a feather fan which she had taken from the mantelpiece. There was a sharper ring in her voice as she replied.

"You seem to think I need warning. You seem to think I cannot take care of myself. You have reminded me once or twice lately that I was a woman now and not a child. Pray, allow me the woman's privilege of choosing for myself."