"My Dear Mr. Stretton,—I will continue to address you by this name as you desire me to do, although I am at a loss to understand your motive in assuming it. You will excuse my making this remark; the confidence that you have hitherto reposed in me leads me to utter a criticism which might otherwise be deemed an impertinence. But it seems to me a pity that you either did not retain your old name and the advantages that this name placed in your way, or that you did not take up the appellation which, as I fear I must repeat, is the only one to which you have any legal right. If your name is not Luttrell, it is Vasari. If you object to retaining the name of Luttrell, why not adopt Vasari? Why complicate matters by taking a name (like that of Stretton) which has no meaning, no importance, no distinction? All unnecessary concealment of truth is foolish; and this is an unnecessary concealment.
"Secondly, may I ask why you propose to accompany your English friends to a place so near your old home? If you wish it to be thought that you are dead, why, in Heaven's name, do you go to a spot which is not ten miles from the house where you were brought up? True, your appearance is altered; your hair is grey and your beard has grown. But your voice: have you thought how easily your voice may betray you? And I have known cases where the eyes alone have revealed a person's identity. If you wish to keep your secret, let me entreat you not to go to Strathleckie. If you wish to undo all that you have succeeded in doing, if you wish to deprive the lady who has inherited the Strathleckie property of her inheritance, then, indeed, you will go to Scotland, but in so doing you show a want of judgment and resolution which I cannot understand.
"You were at the monastery with us after your illness for many months. We learned to know you well and to regard you with affection. We were sorry when you grew restless and wandered away from us to seek fresh work amongst English people—English and Protestant—for the sake of old associations and habit. But we did not think—or at least I did not think—that you were so illogical and so weak as your present conduct drives me to consider you.
"There is only one explanation possible. You risk discovery, you follow these people to Scotland because one of the ladies of the family has given you, or you hope that she will give you, some special marks of favour. In plain words, you are in love. I have partially gathered that from your letters. Perhaps she also is in love with you. There is a Miss Heron, who is said to be beautiful; there is also Miss Murray. Is it on account of either of these ladies that you have returned to Scotland?
"I speak very frankly, because I conceive that I have a certain claim upon your confidence. I do not merely allude to the kindness shown to you by the Brothers of San Stefano, which probably saved your life. I claim your regard because I know that you were born in this village, baptised by one of ourselves, that you are of Italian parentage, and that you have never had any right to the name that you have borne for four-and-twenty years. This was suspicion when I saw you last; it is certainty now. We have found the woman Vincenza, who is your mother. She has told us her story, and it is one which even your English courts of law will find it difficult to disprove. She acknowledges that she changed the two children; that, when one of her twins died, she thought that she could benefit the other by putting it in the place of the English child. Her own baby, Bernardino, was brought up by the Luttrell family and called Brian Luttrell. That was yourself.
"How about the English boy, the real heir to the property? I told you about him when you were with us; I offered to let you see him: I wanted you to know him. You declined; I think you were wrong. You did see him many a time; you were friendly with him, although you did not know the connection that existed between you. I believe that you will remember him when I tell you that he was known in the monastery as Brother Dino. Dino Vasari was the name by which he had been known; but I think that you never learnt his surname. He had a romantic affection for you, and was grieved when you refused to meet the man who had so curious a claim upon your notice. I sent him away from the monastery in a few days, as you will perhaps remember; I knew that if he saw much of you, not even my authority, my influence, would induce him to keep the secret of his birth—from you. You are rivals, certainly; you might be enemies; and, just because that cause of rivalry and enmity subsists, Dino Vasari loves you with his whole soul. If you stood in your old position, even I could not persuade him to dispossess you; but you have voluntarily given it up. Your property has gone to your cousin, and Dino has now no scruple about claiming his rights. Now that Vincenza Vasari's evidence has been obtained, it is thought well that he should make the story public, and try to get his position acknowledged. Therefore he is starting for England, where he will arrive on the eighteenth of the month. He has his orders, and he will obey them. It is perhaps well that you should know what they are. He is to proceed at once to Scotland, and obtain interviews as soon as possible with Mr. Colquhoun and Mrs. Luttrell. He will submit his claims to them, and ascertain the line that they will take. After that, he will put the law in motion, and take steps towards dispossessing Miss Murray.
"I write all this to you at Dino's own request. I grieve to say that he is occasionally headstrong to a degree which gives us pain and anxiety. He refused to take any steps in the matter until I had communicated with you, because he says that if you intend to make yourself known by your former name, and take back the property which accrued to you upon Mr. Richard Luttrell's death, he will not stand in your way. I have pointed out to him, as I now point out to you, that this line of action would be dishonest, and practically impossible, because, in his interests, we should then take the matter up and make the facts public, but he insists upon my mentioning the proposal. I mention it in full confidence that your generosity and sense of honour will alike prevent you from putting obstacles in the way of my pupil's recognition by his mother and succession to his inheritance.
"If you wish that Dino (as for the sake of convenience I will still call him) should be restored to his rights, and if you desire to show that you have no ill-feeling towards him on account of this proposed endeavour to recover what is really his own, he begs you to meet him on his arrival in London on the 18th of August. He will be in lodgings kept by a good Catholic friend of ours at No. 14, Tarragon-street, Russell-square, and you will inquire for him by the name of Mr. Vasari, as he will not assume the name of Brian Luttrell until he has seen you. He will, of course, be in secular dress.
"I have now made you master of all necessary facts. If I have done so under protest, it is no concern of yours. I earnestly recommend you to give up your residence in Scotland, and to return, at any rate until this matter is settled, to San Stefano. I need hardly say that Brian Luttrell will never let you know the necessity of such drudgery as that in which you have lately been engaged.
"With earnest wishes for your welfare, and above all for your speedy return to the bosom of the true Catholic Church in which you were baptised, and of which I hope to see you one day account yourself a faithful child, I remain, my dear son,