"We will pass over the amount of your suffering," said Mrs. Luttrell, "if you please. I have no doubt that it is very great, but I think that it will soon be assuaged. I think that you will soon begin to remember the many things that you gain by your brother's death—the social position, the assured income, the estate in Scotland which I brought to your father, as well as his own house of Netherglen—all the things for which men are only too ready to sell their souls."
"All these things are nothing to me," sighed Brian.
"They are a great deal in the world's eyes. You will soon find out how differently it receives you now from the way it received you a year—a month—a week—ago. You are a rich man. I wish you joy of your wealth. Everything goes to you except Netherglen itself; that is left in my hands."
"Mother, are you mad?" said her son, passionately. "Why do you talk to me in this way? I swear to you that I would give every hope and every joy that I ever possessed—I would give my life—to have Richard back again! Do you think I ever wanted to be rich through his death?"
"I do not know what you wanted," said Mrs. Luttrell, sternly. "I have no means of guessing."
"Is this what you wished me to say?" said Brian, whose voice was hoarse and changed. "I said that I would listen—but, you might spare me these taunts, at least."
"I do not taunt you. I wish only to draw attention to the difference between your position and my own. Richard's death brings wealth, ease, comfort to you; to me nothing but desolation. I am willing to allow the house of which I have been the mistress for so many years, of which I am legally the mistress still, to pass into your hands. I have lost my home as well as my sons. I am desolate."
"Your sons! You have not lost both your sons, mother," pleaded Brian, with a note of bitter pain in his voice, as he came closer to her and tried in vain to take her icy hand. "Why do you think that you are no longer mistress of this house? You are as much mistress as you were in my father's time—in Richard's time. Why should there be a difference now?"
"There is this difference," said Mrs. Luttrell, coldly, "that I do not care to live in any house with you. It would be painful to me; that is all. If you desire to stay, I will go."
Brian staggered back as if she had struck him in the face.