"Then," said the Prior, "since that is your resolution—your wise resolution, let me say—I will tell you frankly what my reading of the riddle has been, and what, I think, Vincenza did. It is my belief that Mrs. Luttrell's child died, and was buried under the name of Vincenza's child."
"You, too, then—you believe that I am not a Luttrell?"
"If the truth could ever be ascertained, which I do not think it will be, I believe that this would turn out to be the case. The key of the whole matter lies in the fact that Vincenza had twins. One of these children was sent to the grandmother in the country; one was nursed in the village of San Stefano. A fever had broken out in the village, and Vincenza's charge—the little Brian Luttrell—died. She immediately changed the dead child for her own, being wishful to escape the blame of carelessness, and retain her place; also to gain for her own child the advantages of wealth and position. The two boys, who have now grown to manhood, are brothers; children, of one mother; and Brian Luttrell—a baby boy of some four months old—sleeps, as his mother declares, in the graveyard of San Stefano."
"Why did the nurse confess only a half-truth, then?"
"She wanted to get absolution; and yet she did not want to injure the prospects of her child, I suppose. At the worst, she thought that one boy would be substituted for another. The woman was foolish—and wicked," said the Prior, with a grain of impatient contempt in his tone; "and the more foolish that she did not observe that she was outwitting herself—trying to cheat God as well as man."
"Then—you think—that I——"
"That you are the son of an Italian gardener and his wife. Courage, my son; it might have been worse. But I know nothing positively; I have constructed a theory out of Vincenza's self-contradictions; it may be true; it may be false. Of one thing I would remind you; that as you have given up your position in England and Scotland, you have no responsibility in the matter. You have done exactly what the law would have required you to do had it been proved that you were Vincenza's son."
"But the other child—the boy who was sent to his grandmother? What became of him?"
The Prior looked at him in silence for a little time before he spoke. "How do you feel towards him?" he said, finally. "Are you prepared to treat him as a brother or not?"
Brian averted his face. "I have had but one brother," he said, shortly. "I cannot expect to find another—especially when I am not sure that he is of my blood or I of his."