"I feel sure that some day he will come back. He will learn the truth--that I have withdrawn my claim; then he and Miss Murray must settle the matter of property between them. They may divide it; or they might even marry." His voice was perfectly calm; he had brooded over this arrangement for so long that it scarcely struck him how terrible it would sound in Mrs. Luttrell's ears. "Do you mean it?" she said, feebly. "You renounce your claim--to be--my son?" "Oh, not your son, mother," he said, kissing the cold hand, which she immediately drew away from him. "Not your son! Not the claim to be loved, and the right to love you! But let that rest between ourselves. Why should the money that I do not want come between me and you, between me and my friend? Let Brian come home, and you will have two sons instead of one." "Rather say that I shall have no son at all," said Mrs. Luttrell, with gathering anger. "If you do this thing I cast you off. I forbid you to give what is your own to Vincenza Vasari's son." "You make it hard for me to act if you forbid me," said Dino, rising and standing before her with a pleading look upon his face. "But I hold to my intention, mother. I will not touch a penny of this fortune. It shall be Brian's, or Miss Murray's--never mine." "The matter is in a lawyer's hands. Your rights will be proved in spite of you." "I do not think they will. I hold the proofs in my hand. I can destroy them every one, if I choose." "But you will not choose. Besides, these are the copies, not the originals." "No, excuse me. I obtained the originals from Mr. Brett. He expects me to take them back to him to-night." Dino held out a roll of papers. "They're all here. I will not burn them, mother, if you will send for Brian back and let him have his share." "They would be no use if he came back. You must have the whole or nothing. Let us make a bargain; give up your scheme of entering a monastery, and then I will consent to some arrangement with Brian about money matters. But I will never see him!" Dino shook his head. He turned to the fireplace with the papers in his hand. "I withdraw my claims," he said, simply. Mrs. Luttrell was quivering with suppressed excitement, but she mastered herself sufficiently to speak with perfect coldness. "Unless you consent to abandon a monastic life, I would rather that your claims were given up," she said. "Let Elizabeth Murray keep the property, and do you and the man Vasari go your separate ways." "Mother----" "Call me 'mother' no longer," she said, sternly, "you are no more my son than he was, if you can leave me, in my loneliness and widowhood, to be a monk." "Then--this is the end," said Dino.