The two lawyers drove away to Dunmuir together. Hugo watched the red lamps of the dog-cart down the road, and then turned away from the window with a gnawing sense of anxiety, which grew more imperious every moment. He felt that he must do something to relieve it. He knew where the interview with Dino was taking place. Mrs. Luttrell had lately been growing somewhat infirm: a slight stroke of paralysis, dangerous only in that it was probably the precursor of other attacks, had rendered locomotion particularly distasteful to her. She did not like to feel that she was dependent upon others for aid, and, therefore, sat usually in a wheeled chair in her dressing-room, and it was the most easily accessible room from her sleeping apartment. She was in her dressing-room now, and Dino Vasari was with her.
Hugo stole quietly through the passage until he reached the door of Mrs. Luttrell's bed-room, which was ajar. He slipped into the room and looked round. It was dimly lighted by the red glow of the fire, and by this dim light he saw that the door into the dressing-room was also not quite closed. He could hear the sound of voices. He paused a moment, and then advanced. There was a high screen near the door, of which one fold was so close to the wall that only a slight figure could slip behind it, though, when once behind there, it would be entirely hidden. Hugo measured it with his eye: he would have to pass the aperture of the door to reach it, but a cautious glance from a distance assured him that both Mrs. Luttrell and Dino had their backs to him and could not see. He ensconced himself, therefore, between the screen and the wall: he could see nothing, but every word fell distinctly upon his ear.
"Sit down beside me," Mrs. Luttrell was saying—how could her voice have grown so tender?—"and tell me everything about your past life. I knew—I always knew—that that other child was not my son. I have my own Brian now. Call me mother: it is long since I have heard the word."
"Mother!" Dino's musical tones were tremulous. "My mother! I have thought of her all my life."
"Ay, my poor son, and but for the wickedness of others, I might have seen and known you years ago. I had an interloper in my house throughout all those years, and he worked me the bitterest sorrow of my life."
"Do not speak so of Brian, mother," said Dino, gently. "He loved you—and he loved Richard. His loss—his grief—has been greater even than yours."
"How dare you say so to me?" said Mrs. Luttrell, with a momentary return to her old, grim tones. Then, immediately softening them—"But you may say anything you like. It is pleasure enough to hear your voice. You must stay with me, Brian, and let me feast my eyes on you for a time. I have no patience, no moderation left: 'my son was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.'"
He raised his mother's hand and kissed it silently. The action would, of course, have been lost upon Hugo, as he could not see the pair, but for Mrs. Luttrell's next words.
"Nay," she said, "kiss me on the cheek, not on the hand, Brian. I let Hugo Luttrell do it, because of his foreign blood; but you have only a foreign training which you must forget. They said something about your wearing a priest's dress: I am glad you did not wear it here, for you would have been mobbed in Dunmuir. It's a sad pity that you're a Papist, Brian; but we must set Mr. Drummond, our minister, to talk to you, and he'll soon show you the error of your ways."
"I shall be very glad to hear what Mr. Drummond has to say," said Dino, with all the courtesy which his monastic training had instilled; "but I fear that he will have his labour thrown away. And I have one or two things to tell you, mother, now that those gentlemen have gone. If I am to disappoint you, let me do it at once, so that you may understand."