Under False Pretences. Sergeant Adeline

therefore, in which a prolonged conversation could be carried on without much fear of disturbance. Beyond the trees, and on each side of the loch, were ranged the silent hills; their higher crags purple in the sunlight, brown and violet in shadow. The tints of the heather were beginning to glow upon the moors; on the lower-lying slopes a mass of foliage showed its first autumnal colouring; here and there a field of yellow stubble gave a dash of almost dazzling brightness to the landscape, under the cloudless azure of a September sky. Hills, woods, and firmament were alike reflected with mirror-like distinctness in the smooth bosom of the loch, where little, brown ducks swam placidly amongst the weeds, and swallows skimmed and dipped and flew in happy ignorance of the ruin that guilt and misery can work in the lives of men.

      Richard Luttrell stood with his back towards the open door of a large wooden shed used as a boat-house, the interior of which looked densely black by contrast with the brilliant sunlight on the green grass and trees outside it. An open box or two, a heap, of fishing tackle, a broken oar, could be seen but dimly from without. It was in one of these boxes that Richard Luttrell had made, early in the day, a startling discovery. He had come across a pocket-book which had been abstracted from his strong-box in a most mysterious way about a week before. On opening it, he found, not only certain bank-notes which he had missed, but some marked coins and a cornelian seal which had disappeared on previous occasions, proving that a system of robbery had been carried on by one and the same person—evidently a member of the Luttrell household. The spoil was concealed with great care in a locked box on a shelf, and but for an accidental stumble by which Luttrell had brought down the whole shelf and broken the box itself, it would probably have remained there undisturbed. No one would ever have dreamt of seeking for Luttrell's pocket-book in a box in the boat-house.

      "How did this get here? Who keeps the second key of the boat-house?" demanded Richard in the first moment of his discovery.

      And Brian, his younger brother, answered carelessly—

      "Hugo has had it for the last week or two."

      Then, disturbed by his brother's tone, he came to Richard's side and looked at the fragments of the box by which Richard was still kneeling. With an exclamation of surprise he took up the lid of the box and examined it carefully. The name of its owner had been printed in ink on the smooth, brown surface—Hugo Luttrell. And the stolen property was hidden in that little wooden box.

      The exclamations of the two brothers were characteristic. Richard raised himself with the pocket-book in his hand, and said vehemently—

      "The young scoundrel! He shall rue it!"

      While Brian, looking shocked and grieved, sat down on the stump of a tree and muttered, "Poor lad!" between his teeth, as he contemplated the miserable fragments on the ground.

      The sound of a bell came faintly to their ears through the clear morning air. Richard spoke sharply.

      "We must leave the matter for the present. Don't say anything about it. Lock up the boat-house, Brian, and keep the key. We'll have Hugo down here after breakfast, and see whether he'll make a clean breast of it."

      "He may know nothing at all about it," suggested Brian, rising from his seat.

      "It is to be hoped so," said Luttrell, curtly. He walked out of the boat-house with frowning brows and sparkling eyes. "I know one thing—my roof won't shelter him any longer if he is guilty." And then he marched away to the house, leaving Brian to lock the door and follow at his ease.

      That morning's breakfast was long remembered in the Luttrells' house as a period of vague and curious discomfort. The reddish light in Richard's eyes was well known for a danger signal; a storm was in the air when he wore that expression of suppressed emotion. Brian, a good deal disturbed by what had occurred, scarcely spoke at all; he sat with his eyes fixed on the table, forgetting to eat, and glancing only from time to time at Hugo's young, beautiful, laughing face, as the lad talked gaily to a visitor, or fed the dogs—privileged inmates of the dining-room—with morsels from his own plate. It was impossible to think that this handsome boy, just entering on the world, fresh from a military college, with a commission in the Lancers, should have chosen to rob the very man who had been his benefactor and friend, whose house had sheltered him for the last ten years of his life. What could he have wanted with this money? Luttrell made him a handsome allowance, had paid his bills more than once, provided his outfit, put all the resources of his home at Hugo's disposal, as if he had been a son of the house instead of a penniless dependent—had, in short, behaved to him with a generosity which Brian might have resented had he been of a resentful disposition, seeing that he himself had been much less liberally treated. But Brian never concerned himself about that view of the matter; only now, when he suspected Hugo of dishonesty and ingratitude, did he run over in his mind a list of the benefits which the boy had received for many years from the master of the house, and grow indignant at the enumeration. Was it possible that Hugo could be guilty? He had not been truthful as a schoolboy, Brian remembered; once or twice he had narrowly escaped public disgrace for some dishonourable act—dishonourable in the eyes of his companions, as well as of his masters—a fact which was not to Hugo's credit. Perhaps, however, there was now some mistake—perhaps the matter might be cleared up. Appearances were against him, but Hugo might yet vindicate his integrity——

      Brian's meditations were interrupted at this point. His brother had risen from the breakfast-table and was addressing Hugo, with a great show of courtesy, but with the stern light in his eyes which always made those who knew him best be on their guard with Richard Luttrell. "If you are at liberty," he said, "I want you down at the boat-house. I am going there now."

      Brian, who was watching his cousin, saw a sudden change in his face. His lips turned white, his eyes moved uneasily in their sockets. It seemed almost as if he glanced backwards and forwards in order to look for a way of escape. But no escape was possible. Richard stood waiting, severe, inflexible, with that ominous gleam in his eyes. Hugo rose and followed like a dog at his master's call. From the moment that Brian marked his sullen, hang-dog expression and drooping head, he gave up his hope of proving Hugo's innocence. He would gladly have absented himself from the interview, but Richard summoned him in a voice that admitted of no delay.

      The lad's own face and words betrayed him when he was shown the pocket-book and the broken box. He stammered out excuses, prevaricated, lied; until at last Luttrell lost all patience, and insisted upon a definite reply to his question. And then Hugo muttered his last desperate self-justification—that he had "meant to put it back!"

      Richard's stalwart figure, the darkness of his brow, the strong hand in which he was swinging a heavy hunting-crop—caught up, as he left the house, for no decided purpose, but disagreeably significant in Hugo's eyes—became doubly terrible to the lad during the interval of silence that followed his avowal. He glanced supplicatingly at Brian; but Brian had no aid to give him now. And, when Brian's help failed him, Hugo felt that all was lost.

      Meanwhile, Brian himself, a little in the back ground, leaned against the trunk of a tree which grew close to the shallow water's edge, bent his eyes upon the ground and tried to see the boy's face as little as possible. His affection for Hugo had given him an influence over the lad which Richard had certainly never possessed. For, generous as Richard might be, he was not fond of his young cousin; and Hugo, being aware of this fact, regarded him with instinctive aversion. In his own fashion he did love Brian—a little bit!

      Brian Luttrell was at this time barely three-and-twenty. He had rooms in London, where he was supposed to be reading for the bar, but his tastes were musical and literary, and he had not yet made much progress in his legal studies. He had a handsome, intellectual face of a very refined type, thoughtful dark eyes, a long, brown moustache, and small pointed beard of the same colour. He was slighter, less muscular, than Richard; and the comment often made upon him was that he had the look of a dreamer, perhaps of an artist—not of a very practical man—and that he was extremely unlike his brother. There was, indeed, a touch of unusual and almost morbid sensitiveness in Brian's nature, which, betraying itself, as it did, from time to time, only by a look, a word, a gesture, yet proved his unlikeness to Richard Luttrell more than any dissimilarity of feature could have done.

      "You meant to put it back,