It was with these words ringing in his ears that Rupert was driven back to Dunmuir.
Brian and his wife arrived about nine o'clock in the evening, as they had said in the letter which Mr. Colquhoun had received. Vivian, wrought up by this time to a high pitch of excitement, did not wait five minutes before pouring the whole of his story into Brian's ear. Brian's eyes flashed, his face looked stern as he listened to Kitty's message.
"The hound!" he said. "The cur! I expected almost as much. I know now what I never dreamt of before. He is a cowardly villain, and I will expose him this very night."
"Remember poor Kitty," said Elizabeth.
"I will spare her as much as possible, but I will not spare him. Do you know, Vivian, that he tried to murder Dino Vasari? There is not a blacker villain on the face of the earth. And to think that all this time my mother has been at his mercy!"
"His mother!" ejaculated Mr. Colquhoun in Percival's ear, with a chuckle of extreme satisfaction, "I'm glad he's come back to that nomenclature. Blood's thicker than water; and I'll stand to it, as I always have done, that this Brian's the right one after all."
"It's the only one there is, now," said Percival, "Vasari is dead."
"Poor laddie! Well, he was just too good for this wicked world," said the lawyer, with great cheerfulness, "and it would be a pity to grudge him to another. And what are you after now, Brian?"
"I'm going up to Netherglen."
"Without your dinner?"