He left Brian alone; and the young man, thinking it likely that | he would be undisturbed for sometime to come, bent his face upon his hands, and tried to [missing word] his position. The strange tangle of circumstances in which he found himself involved would never be easy of adjustment; he wished with all his heart that he had refused the Prior's offer to make his foster-brother known to him, but it was too late now. Was it too late? Could he not send for Padre Cristoforo, and beg him to leave the Italian peasant in his own quiet home, ignorant of Brian's visit to the place where he was born? He would do it; and then he would leave San Stefano for ever; it was not yet too late. He lifted up his head and rose to his feet. He was not alone in the room. To his surprise he saw before him his friend, Dino. "You have come from Padre Cristoforo, have you?" said Brian, quickly and impetuously. He took no notice of the young man's manifest agitation and discomfort, which would have been clear to anybody less pre-occupied than Brian, at that moment. "Tell him from me that there is no need for me to see the man that he spoke of--that I do not wish to meet him. He will understand what I mean." A change, like that produced by a sudden electric shock, passed over Dino's face. His hands fell to his sides. They had been outstretched before, as if in greeting. "You do not want to see him?" he repeated. "I will not see him," said Brian, harshly, almost violently. "Weak as I am, I'll go straight out of the house and village sooner than meet him. Why does he want to see me? I have nothing to give him now." Long afterwards he remembered the look on Dino's face. Pain, regret, yearning affection, seemed to struggle for the mastery; his eyes were filled with tears, his lips were pale. But he said nothing. He went away from the room, and took the message that had been given him to the Prior. Brian felt that he had perhaps been selfish, but he consoled himself with the thought that the peasant lad would gain nothing by a meeting with him, and that such an embarrassing interview, as it must necessarily be, would be a pain to them both. But he did not know that the foster-brother (brother or foster-brother, which could it be?) was sobbing on the floor of the Prior's cell, in a passion of vehement grief at Brian's rejection of Padre Cristoforo's proposition. He would scarcely have understood that grief if he had seen it. He would have found it difficult to realise that the boy, Dino, had grown from childhood with a strong but suppressed belief in his mother's strange story, and yet, that, as soon as he saw Brian Luttrell, his heart had gone out to him with the passionate tenderness that he had waited all his life to bestow upon a brother.