"If I had known," began Brian; and then he burst out with a sudden change of tone. "Give them your riches, since they value them and you do not, and give yourself to me, Elizabeth. Surely your debt to them would then be paid."
"What! by recompensing kindness with treachery?" she said, glancing at him mournfully. "No, that plan would not answer. The money is a small part of what I owe them. But I do sometimes wish that it had gone to anybody but me; especially when I remember the sad circumstances under which it became mine. When I think of poor Mrs. Luttrell of Netherglen, I have never felt as if it were right to spend her sons' inheritance in what gave pleasure to myself alone."
"Mrs. Luttrell of —— But what have you to do with her?" said Brian, with a sudden fixity of feature and harshness of voice that alarmed Elizabeth. "Mrs. Luttrell of Netherglen! Good Heaven! It is not you—you—who inherited that property? The Luttrell-Murrays——"
"I am the only Luttrell-Murray living," said Elizabeth.
He stared at her dumbly, as if he could not believe his ears.
"And you have the Luttrell estate?" he said at last.
"I have."
"I am glad of it," he answered; and then he put his hand over his eyes for a second or two, as if to shut out the light of day. "Yes, I am very glad."
"What do you mean, Mr. Stretton?" said Elizabeth, who was watching him intently. "Do you know anything of my family? Do you know anything of the Luttrells?"
"I have met some of them," he answered, slowly. His face was paler than usual, and his eyes, after one hasty glance at her, fell to the ground. "It was a long time ago. I do not know them now."