"You know Mr. Colquhoun's opinion. My father will think exactly as you and I do. No, it depends entirely upon whether you think I shall do your errand well, Elizabeth, and whether you will give me the chance of showing that I am not so ungenerous and so base as you say you think me. Tell me to fetch Brian Luttrell home again, and I will go." And, with tears in her eyes, Elizabeth said, "Go." CHAPTER XXXV. DINO'S HOME-COMING. "It is to be understood," said Percival, two or three days later, with an affectation of great precision, "that I surrender none of my rights by going on this wild-goose chase. I shall come back in a few months' time to claim my bride." Elizabeth smiled rather sadly. "Very well," she said. "In fact," Percival went on expansively, "I shall expect the wedding to be arranged for the day after my arrival, whenever that takes place. So get your white gown and lace veil ready, and we will have Brian Luttrell as best man, and Dino Vasari to give you away." It was rather cruel jesting, thought Elizabeth; but then Percival was in the habit, when he was in a good humour, of turning his deepest feelings into jest. The submission with which she listened to him, roused him after a time to a perception that his words were somewhat painful to her; and he relapsed into a silence which he broke by saying in an entirely different sort of voice:-- "Have you no message for Brian Luttrell, Elizabeth?" "You know all that I want to say." "But is there nothing else? No special message of remembrance and friendship?" "Tell him," said Elizabeth, flushing and then paling again, "that I shall not be happy until he comes back and takes what is his own." "Well, I can't say anything much stronger," said Percival, drily. "I will remember." They talked no more about themselves, until the day on which he was to start, and then, when he was about to take his leave of her, he said, in a very low voice:-- "Do you mean to be true to me or not when Luttrell comes home, Elizabeth?" "I shall keep my word to you, Percival. Oh, don't--don't--say that to me again!" she cried, bursting into tears, as she saw the lurking doubt that so constantly haunted his mind. "I won't," he said. "I will never say it again if you tell me that you trust me as I trust you." "I do trust you." "And I am not so base and mean as you said I was?" For, perhaps, the first time in her life, she kissed him of her own accord. It was with this kiss burning upon his lips that Percival leaned out of the window of the railway-carriage as the train steamed away into the darkness, and waved a last farewell to the woman he loved.