"You won't get Miss Murray to touch a farthing of it either."
"You must persuade her," said Brian, calmly. "I think you will understand my feeling, when I say that I would rather she had it—she and you—than anybody in the world."
"You must come back. I promised to bring you back," returned Percival, with some agitation of manner. "I said that I would not go back without you."
"I will write to Mr. Colquhoun and explain."
"Confound it! What Colquhoun thinks does not signify. It is Elizabeth whom I promised."
"Well," said Brian slowly, and with some difficulty, "I think I can explain it to her, too, if you will let me write to her."
Percival suppressed a groan.
"Why should I go back?" asked Luttrell. "I see no reason."
"And I wish you did not drive me to tell you the reason," said Percival, in crabbed, reluctant tones. "But it must come, sooner or later. If you won't go for any other reason, will you go when I tell you that Elizabeth Murray cares for you as she never cared for me, and never will care for any other man in the world? That was why I came to fetch you back; and, if you don't find it a reason for going back and marrying her, why—you deserve to stop on the Rocas Reef for the remainder of your natural life!"