Angela Vivian was twenty-three, and still unmarried. It was said that she had been difficult to please. But her choice was made at last. She was to be married to Richard Luttrell before the end of the year. They had been playmates in childhood, and their parents had been old friends. Angela was now visiting Mrs. Luttrell, who was proud of her son's choice, and made much of her as a guest at Netherglen.
She spoke to Hugo as a sister might have done.
"What is it, dear?" she asked him, smoothing out his short, dark curls, as she spoke. "Can't you tell me? Is it some great trouble?"
For answer he dragged himself a little closer to her, and bowed his hot forehead on one of her hands, which she was resting on the ground, while she stroked his hair with the other. The action touched her; she did not know why. His sobs were quietening. He was by no means very manly, as English people understand manliness, but even he was ashamed to be found crying like a baby over his woes.
"Dear Hugo, can you not tell me what is wrong?" said Angela, more seriously alarmed by his silence than by his tears. She had a right to question him, for he had previously given her as much of his confidence as he ever gave to anybody, and she had been a very good friend to him. "Are you in some great trouble?"
"Yes," he said, in a voice so choked that she could hardly hear the word.
"And you have been in some scuffle surely. Your clothes are torn—you are hurt!" said she, sympathetically. "Why, Hugo, you must have been fighting!" Then, as he gave her no answer, she resumed in a voice of tender concern, "You are not really hurt, are you, dear boy? You can move—you can get up? Shall I fetch anyone to help you?"
"No, no, no!" he cried, clutching at her dress, as though to stay her going. "Don't leave me. I am not hurt—at 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.