In a little room on the second-floor of a London lodging-house near Manchester-square, Brian Luttrell was packing a box, with the few scanty possessions that he called his own. He had little light to see by, for the slender, tallow candle burnt with a very uncertain flame: the glare of the gas lamps in the street gave almost a better light. The floor was uncarpeted, the furniture scanty and poor: the fire in the grate smouldered miserably, and languished for want of fuel. But there was a contented look on Brian's face. He even whistled and hummed to himself as he packed his box, and though the tune broke down, and ended with a sigh, it showed a mind more at ease than Brian's had been for many a long day.
"Heigho!" he said, rising from his task, and giving the box a shove with his foot into a corner, "I wonder where Dino is? He ought not to be out so late with that cough of his. I suppose he has gone to Brett and Grattan's. I am glad the dear fellow has put himself into their hands. Right ought to be done: she would have said so herself, and I know Dino will be generous. It would suit him very well to take a money compensation, and let her continue to reign, with glories somewhat shorn, however, at Strathleckie. I am afraid he will do nothing but enrich San Stefano with his inheritance. He certainly will not settle down at Netherglen as a country squire.
"What will my mother say? Pooh! I must get out of that habit of calling her my mother. She is no relation of mine, as she herself told me. Mrs. Luttrell!—it sounds a little odd. Odder, too, to think that I must never sign myself Brian Luttrell any more. Bernardino Vasari! I think I might as well stick to the plain John Stretton, which I adopted on the spur of the moment at San Stefano. I suppose I shall soon have to meet the woman who calls herself—who is—my mother. I will say nothing harsh or unkind to her, poor thing! She has done herself a greater injury than she has done me."
So he meditated, with his face bent over his folded arms upon the mantelpiece. A slow step on the stair roused him, he poked the fire vigorously, lighted another candle, and then opened the door.
"Is that you, Dino?" he said. "Where have you been for the last three hours?"
Dino it was. He came in without speaking, and dropped into a chair, as if exhausted with fatigue. Brian repeated his question, but when Dino tried to answer it, a fit of coughing choked his words. It lasted several minutes, and left him panting, with the perspiration standing in great beads upon his brow.
With a grave and anxious face Brian brought him some water, wrapped a cloak round his shaking shoulders, and stood by him, waiting for the paroxysm of coughing to abate. Dino's cough was seldom more than the little hacking one, which the wound in his side seemed to have left, but it was always apt to grow worse in cold or foggy weather, and at times increased to positive violence. Brian, who had visited him regularly while he was in hospital, and nursed him with a woman's tenderness as soon as he was discharged from it, had never known it to be so bad as it was on this occasion.
"You've been overdoing yourself, old fellow," he said, affectionately, when Dino was able to look up and smile. "You have been out too late. And this den of mine is not the place for you. You must clear out of it as soon as you can."
"Not as long as you are here," said Dino.
"That was all very well as long as we could remain unknown. But now that Brett and Grattan consent to take up your case, as I knew they would all along, they will want to see you: your friends and relations will want to visit you; and you must not be found here with me. I'll settle you in new lodgings before I sail. There's a comfortable place in Piccadilly that I used to know, with a landlady who is honest and kind."