"And you have been in some scuffle surely. Your clothes are torn--you are hurt!" said she, sympathetically. "Why, Hugo, you must have been fighting!" Then, as he gave her no answer, she resumed in a voice of tender concern, "You are not really hurt, are you, dear boy? You can move--you can get up? Shall I fetch anyone to help you?" "No, no, no!" he cried, clutching at her dress, as though to stay her going. "Don't leave me. I am not hurt--at least, I can walk and stand easily enough, though I have been hurt--set upon, and treated like--like a dog by him----" "By whom, Hugo?" said Angela, startled by the tenor of his incoherent sentences. "Who has set upon you and ill-treated you?" But Hugo hid his face. "I won't tell you," he said, sullenly. There was a silence. "Can I do anything for you?" Angela asked at length, very gently. "No." She waited a little longer, and, as he made no further sign, she tried to rise. "Shall I go, Hugo?" she said. "Yes--if you like." Then he burst out passionately, "Of course, you will go. You are like everybody else. You are like Richard Luttrell. You will do what he tells you. I am abandoned by everybody. You all hate me; and I hate you all!" Little as Angela understood his words, there was something in them that made her seat herself beside him on the grass, instead of leaving him alone. "Dear Hugo," she said, "I have never hated you." "But you will soon." "I see," said she, softly. "I understand you now. You are in trouble--you have been doing something wrong, and you think that we shall be angry with you. Listen, Hugo, Richard maybe angry at first, but he is kind as well as just. He will forgive you, and we shall love you as much as ever. I will tell him that you are sorry for whatever it is, and then he will not refuse his pardon." "I don't want it," said Hugo, hoarsely. "I hate him." "Hugo!" "I hate him--I loathe him. You would hate him, too, if you knew him as well as I do. You are going to marry him! Well, you will be miserable all your life long, and then you will remember what I say." "I should be angry with you if I did not know how little you meant this," said Angela, in an unruffled voice, although the faint colour had risen to her cheeks, and her eyes looked feverishly bright. "But you are not like yourself, Hugo; you are distressed about something. You know, at least, that we do not hate you, and you do not hate us." "I do not hate you," said Hugo, with emphasis. He seized a fold of her dress and pressed it to his lips. But he said nothing more, and by-and-bye, when she gently disengaged her gown from his hold, he made no opposition to her going. She left him with reluctance, but she knew that Mrs. Luttrell would want her at that hour, and did not like to be kept waiting. She glanced back when she reached the bend in the road that would hide him from her sight. She saw that he had resumed his former position, with his head bent upon his arms, and his face hidden.