Under False Pretences. Sergeant Adeline

least, I can walk and stand easily enough, though I have been hurt—set upon, and treated like—like a dog by him——"

      "By whom, Hugo?" said Angela, startled by the tenor of his incoherent sentences. "Who has set upon you and ill-treated you?"

      But Hugo hid his face. "I won't tell you," he said, sullenly.

      There was a silence. "Can I do anything for you?" Angela asked at length, very gently.

      "No."

      She waited a little longer, and, as he made no further sign, she tried to rise. "Shall I go, Hugo?" she said.

      "Yes—if you like." Then he burst out passionately, "Of course, you will go. You are like everybody else. You are like Richard Luttrell. You will do what he tells you. I am abandoned by everybody. You all hate me; and I hate you all!"

      Little as Angela understood his words, there was something in them that made her seat herself beside him on the grass, instead of leaving him alone. "Dear Hugo," she said, "I have never hated you."

      "But you will soon."

      "I see," said she, softly. "I understand you now. You are in trouble—you have been doing something wrong, and you think that we shall be angry with you. Listen, Hugo, Richard maybe angry at first, but he is kind as well as just. He will forgive you, and we shall love you as much as ever. I will tell him that you are sorry for whatever it is, and then he will not refuse his pardon."

      "I don't want it," said Hugo, hoarsely. "I hate him."

      "Hugo!"

      "I hate him—I loathe him. You would hate him, too, if you knew him as well as I do. You are going to marry him! Well, you will be miserable all your life long, and then you will remember what I say."

      "I should be angry with you if I did not know how little you meant this," said Angela, in an unruffled voice, although the faint colour had risen to her cheeks, and her eyes looked feverishly bright. "But you are not like yourself, Hugo; you are distressed about something. You know, at least, that we do not hate you, and you do not hate us."

      "I do not hate you," said Hugo, with emphasis.

      He seized a fold of her dress and pressed it to his lips. But he said nothing more, and by-and-bye, when she gently disengaged her gown from his hold, he made no opposition to her going. She left him with reluctance, but she knew that Mrs. Luttrell would want her at that hour, and did not like to be kept waiting. She glanced back when she reached the bend in the road that would hide him from her sight. She saw that he had resumed his former position, with his head bent upon his arms, and his face hidden.

      "Poor Hugo!" she said to herself, as she turned towards the house.

      Netherglen was a quaint-looking, irregular building of grey, stone, not very large, but considerably larger than its appearance led one to conjecture, from the fact that a wing had been added at the back of the house, where it was not immediately apparent. The peculiarity of this wing was that, although built close to the house, it did not actually touch it except at certain points where communication with the main part was necessary; the rooms on the outer wing ran parallel for some distance with those in the house, but were separated by an interval of one or two feet. This was a precaution taken, it was said, in order to deaden the noise made by the children when they were in the nurseries situated in this part of the house. It had certainly been an effectual one; it was difficult to hear any sound proceeding from these rooms, even when one stood in the large central hall from which the sitting-rooms opened.

      Angela was anxious to find Richard and ascertain whether or not he was really seriously incensed against his cousin, but he was not to be found. A party of guests had arrived unexpectedly for luncheon; Mrs. Luttrell and Brian were both busily engaged in entertaining them. Angela glanced at Brian; it struck her that he was not in his usual good spirits. But she had no chance of asking him if anything were amiss.

      The master of the house arrived in time to take his place at the head of the table, and from the moment of his arrival, Angela was certain that he had been, if he were not still, seriously annoyed by some occurrence of the day. She knew his face very well, and she knew the meaning of the gleam of his eye underneath the lowered eyebrows, the twitching nostril, and the grim setting of his mouth. He spoke very little, and did not smile even when he glanced at her. These were ominous signs.

      "Where is Hugo?" demanded Mrs. Luttrell as they seated themselves at the table. "Have you seen him, Brian?"

      "Yes, I saw him down by the loch this morning," said Brian, but without raising his eyes.

      "The bell had better be rung outside the house," said Mrs. Luttrell. "It can be heard quite well on the loch."

      "It is unnecessary, mother," said Richard, promptly. "Hugo is not coming in to lunch."

      There was a momentary flash of his eye as he spoke, which convinced Angela that Hugo's disgrace was to be no transient one. Her heart sank; she did not find that Richard's wrath was easy to appease when once thoroughly aroused. Again she looked at Brian, and it seemed to her that his face was paler and more sombre than she had ever seen it before.

      The brothers were usually on such pleasant terms that their silence to each other during the meal became a matter of remark to others beside Angela and Mrs. Luttrell. Had they quarrelled? There was an evident coolness between them; for, on the only occasion on which they addressed each other, Richard contemptuously contradicted his brother with insulting directness, and Brian replied with what for him was decided warmth. But the matter dropped—perhaps each was ashamed of having manifested his annoyance in public—and only their silence to each other betrayed that anything was wrong.

      The party separated into three portions after luncheon. Mrs. Luttrell and a lady of her own age agreed to remain indoors, or to stroll quietly round the garden. Angela and two or three other young people meant to get out the boat and fish the loch for pike. Richard and a couple of his friends were going to shoot in the neighbouring woods. And, while these arrangements were making, and everybody was standing about the hall, or in the wide porch which opened out into the garden, Hugo's name was again mentioned.

      "What has become of that boy?" said Mrs. Luttrell. "He is not generally so late. Richard, do you know?"

      "I'll tell you afterwards, mother," answered her son, in a low tone. "Don't say anything more about him just now."

      "Is there anything wrong?" said his mother, also lowering her voice. But he had turned away.

      "Brian, what is it?" she asked, impatiently.

      "For Heaven's sake, don't ask Brian," said Richard, looking back over his shoulder, "there is no knowing what he may not require you to believe. Leave the story to me."

      "I've no desire to tell it," replied Brian, moving away.

      Luttrell's friends were already outside the hall door, lighting their cigars and playing with the dogs. A keeper stood in the background, waiting until the party should start.

      "Aren't you coming, Brian?" said one of the young men.

      "I'll join you presently," said Brian. "I am going down to the loch first to get out the boat."

      "What a splendid gun that is of yours!" said Archie Grant, the younger of the two men. "It is yours, is it not? I saw it in the corner of the hall as I came in. You had it the other day at the Duke's."

      "It was not mine. It belongs to Hugo."

      "Let me have a look at it again; it's an awfully fine one."

      "Are you ready, Grant?" said Richard Luttrell, coming forward. "What are you looking for?"

      "Oh, nothing; a gun," said the young fellow. "I see it's gone. I thought it was there when I first came in; it's of no consequence."

      "Not your own gun, I suppose?"

      "No, no; I have my own. It was Hugo's."

      "Yes; rather a fine one," said Richard, indifferently. "You're not coming,