Hugo considered the situation very seriously. It would be better for him to stay at Netherglen, where he could ascertain his aunt's condition from time to time, and be sure that there were no signs of returning speech and muscular power. Dared he risk disobedience to Dino's command? On deliberation, he thought he dare. Dino could prove nothing against him: it would be assertion against assertion, that was all. And most people would look on the accusations that Dino would bring as positive slander. Hugo felt that his greatest danger lay in his own cowardice--his absence of self-control and superstitious fear of Dino's eye. But if the young monk were out of England there was no present reason to be afraid. And when such a piece of luck had occurred as Mrs. Luttrell's paralytic stroke seemed likely to prove to Hugo, it would be folly to take no advantage of it. Hugo had had one or two wonderful strokes of luck in his life; but he told himself that this was the greatest of all. He was rather inclined to attribute it to his possession of a medal which had been blessed by the Pope (for, as far as he had any religion at all, Hugo was still a Romanist), which his mother had hung round his neck whilst he was a chubby-faced boy in Sicily. He wore it still, and was not at all above considering it as a charm for ensuring him a larger slice of good fortune than would otherwise have fallen to his share. And, therefore, in a few days after Mrs. Luttrell's seizure, Hugo was once again at Netherglen, ruling even more openly and imperiously than he had done in the days of his aunt's health and strength. His presence there, and Mrs. Luttrell's helplessness, caused some of Angela Vivian's friends to object seriously to her continued residence at Netherglen. She was still a young woman of considerable beauty; and Hugo was two-and-twenty. Of what use could she be to Mrs. Luttrell? She ought, at any rate, to have an older friend to chaperone her, to be with her in her walks and drives, and be present at the meals which she and Hugo now shared alone. Angela took little notice of the remonstrance of aunts and cousins, but when she heard that her brother Rupert was coming to stay at the Herons, and proposed to spend a day or two at Netherglen on his way thither, she felt a qualm of fear. Rupert was very careful of his sister: she felt sure that she would never be permitted to do what he thought in the least degree unbecoming.