"I won't ask to-night what you wanted me for," he said, easily. "I am rather battered and sleepy; we shall talk better to-morrow." "You can set my mind at rest on one point, at any rate," rejoined Elizabeth, whose face burned with a feverish-looking flush. "It is, of course, a mistake that you knew a week ago of Brian Luttrell being in London?" "Oh, of course," said Percival. But the irony in his voice was too plain for her to be deceived by it. "Did you know, Percival?" "Well, if you must have the plain truth," he said, sitting up and examining the end of his cigar with much attention, "I did." She was silent. He raised his eyes, apparently with some effort, to her face; saw there a rather shocked and startled look, and rushed immediately into vehement speech. "What if I did! Do you expect me to rush to you with every disturbing report I hear? I did not see this man, Brian Luttrell; I should not know him if I did--as Brian Luttrell, at any rate. I merely heard the story from a--an acquaintance of mine----" "Dino Vasari," said Elizabeth. "Oh, I see you know the facts. There is no need for me to say any more. Of course, you attach no weight to any reasons I might have for silence." "Indeed, I do, Percival; or I should do, if I knew what they were." "Can you not guess them?" he said, looking at her intently. "Can you think of no powerful motive that would make me anxious to delay the telling of the story?" "None," she said. "None, except one that would be beneath you." "Beneath me? Is it possible?" scoffed Percival. "No motive is too base for me, allow me to tell you, my dear child. I am the true designing villain of romance. Go on: what is the one bad motive which you attribute to me?" "I do not attribute it to you," said Elizabeth, slowly, but with some indignation. "I never in my life believed, I never shall believe, that you cared in the least whether I was rich or poor." Percival paused, as if he had met with an unexpected check, and then went off into a fit of rather forced laughter. "So you never thought that," he said. "And that was the only motive that occurred to you? Then, perhaps you will kindly tell me the story as it was told to you, for you seem to have had a special edition. Has Dino Vasari been down here?" She gave him a short account of the events that had occurred at Netherglen, and she noticed that as he listened, he forgot to smoke his cigar, and that he leaned his elbow on the arm of the great chair, and shaded his eyes with his hand. There was a certain suppressed eagerness in his manner, as he turned round when she had finished, and said, with lifted eyebrows:-- "Is that all?" "What else do you know?" said Elizabeth. He rubbed his hand impatiently backwards and forwards on the arm of the chair, and did not speak for a moment. "What does Colquhoun advise you to do?" he asked, presently. "To wait here until Brian Luttrell is found and brought home." "Brought home. They think he will come?"