"Sir," said Dino, mildly, but with great dignity, "have I asked you for a single penny?"
Heron looked at him as if he would like to carry out the latter part of his threat, but the young man was so frail, so thin, so feeble, that he felt suddenly ashamed of having threatened him. He rose, planted his back firmly against the mantelpiece, and pointed significantly to the door. "Go!" he said, briefly. "And don't come back."
"If I go," said Dino, rising from his chair, "I shall take the express train to Scotland at eight o'clock to-night, and I shall see Miss Murray to-morrow morning."
The shot told. A sort of quiver passed over Percival's set face. He muttered an angry ejaculation. "I'll see you d——d first," he said. "You'll do nothing of the kind."
"Then will you hear my story?"
Heron paused. He could have ground his teeth with fury; but he was quite alive to the difficulties of the situation. If this young monk went with his story to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth believed it, what would become of her fidelity to him? With his habitual cynicism, he told himself that no woman would keep her word, if by doing so she lost a fortune and a lover both. He must hear this story, if only to prevent its being told to her.
"Well," he said at last, taking his pipe from the mantelshelf, "I'll listen. Be so good as to make your story short. I have no time to waste." And then he rammed the tobacco into the bowl with his thumb in a suggestively decisive manner, lighted it, and proceeded to puff at his pipe with a sort of savage vigour. He sent out great clouds of smoke, which speedily filled the air and rendered speaking difficult to Dino, whose lungs had become delicate in consequence of his wound. But Percival was rather pleased than otherwise to inconvenience him.
"There are several reasons," the young man began, "why Brian Luttrell wished to be thought dead. He had killed his brother by accident, and Mrs. Luttrell thought that there had been malice as well as carelessness in the deed. That was one reason. His mother's harshness preyed upon his mind and drove him almost to melancholy madness. Mrs. Luttrell made another statement, and made it in a way that convinced him that she had reasons for making it——"
"Can't you cut it short?" said Percival. "It's all very interesting, no doubt: but as I don't care a hang what Brian Luttrell said, or thought, or did, I should prefer to have as little of it as possible."
"I am sorry to inconvenience you, but I must tell my story in my own way," answered Dino. The flash of his eye and the increased colour in his cheek showed that Heron's words irritated him, but his voice was carefully calm and cool. "Mrs. Luttrell's statement was this: that Brian Luttrell was not her son at all. I have in my possession the letter that she wrote to him on the subject, assuring him confidently that he was the child of her Italian nurse, Vincenza Vasari, and that her own child had died in infancy, and was buried in the churchyard of San Stefano. Here is the letter, if you like to assure yourself that what I have said is true."